Phoenix Down
by strayphoenix
Summary: Pyrrha Nikos survives the Fall of Beacon. She survives to become the Fall Maiden. To become the Dragon Slayer. To become The One With a Body Count. She survives and becomes the single thing she feared more than death: alone. ON HIATUS.
1. her fearful symmetry

_Call the match._

Whatever ran the world — maidens, dust, or magic — Pyrrha pleaded with it. She had Cinder in a chokehold, the woman's hands molten hot around Miló, inches from her throat. Her arms and legs ached. Deep in her aura, Pyrrha knew no one could hear her. No one was coming. Yet she couldn't undo twelve years of tournament training in an instant; that little child in her memory, beaten and pinned by her trainer, was slapping a palm to the mat, begging, _call the match. Please. Anyone. Before someone gets hurt._

The dragon was circling. Miló was growing too hot. She had one hit left in her, if that. She was out of time. She couldn't do it. Call the match. Don't make me— She couldn't—

Images flashed across her mind's eye: Penny's cloth on the ground; Ruby's white knuckles on a weapon that wasn't hers; the fear in Ozpin's eyes; the terror in Jaune's.

And a voice, deep in her bones, whispered, _Yes you can._

Miló snapped in her hands. The dragon dove.

Pyrrha tightened the arm around Cinder's throat for grounding and swung what was left of Miló back. She squeezed her eyes shut. And thrust.

She felt Cinder seize as Miló, even broken, struck true. She felt the woman's aura shudder against her own, flickering, her footing loose—

Then the tower exploded around them.

Pyrrha was thrown by the force of it, clear across the room. Her aura collapsing with the blow against a remaining pillar. She called for Akoúo̱, her last defense, and staggered to her feet with ringing ears. It hadn't been enough. She braced herself behind her shield, reaching with her Semblance for any metal to take the place of Miló.

But Cinder wasn't standing. She was on all fours, coughing blood and shaking, Miló's hilt still visible in her back. Its molten tip a fading star just under the skin of Cinder's breast. She was staring at Pyrrha in shock. In fury.

Pyrrha took a step towards her. "You need to get to a hospital."

Cinder screamed something without words and threw a hand out. A rainstorm of glass materialized and flew at Pyrrha. She dropped to a ball behind her shield, but not fast enough to stop a dozen shards slicing into her forward leg below the guard of her calf.

When Pyrrha could think past the pain, when she was confident she could open her mouth without crying out, she looked out from behind Akoúo̱. Cinder was trying to stand. Bursts of fire flickered in her palm and out. The dragon was circling again, shrieking into the night.

"Please," Pyrrha called. "It's over. You need help."

Cinder laughed, slobbering blood all over the floor. Pyrrha attempted standing and almost blacked out from the pain. She tried not to look at her leg and the frayed mess of meaty wires her muscle now resembled. That dragon was fixated on them. She had to get out of the tower.

Weakly, she ripped a length of her sash and tied off her leg below the knee. She floated scraps of metal over to her and used them to get upright. Akoúo̱ nestled on her back in his place, and she pulled a twisted metal rod from the rubble for a crutch. Keeping a sharp eye on Cinder, Pyrrha hobbled over to her. Grimm were always deadliest near death.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Pyrrha reached down with a hand. "I'm sorry, I— I can still help you."

Cinder looked up at her. The Maiden's eye was changing from her left to right, as if she was blinking asynchronously. Its stream of fire was slowly going down. Something was still burning in those golden eyes, but it wasn't magic.

"You don't…" Cinder choked, "...have it...in you…"

Pyrrha reached down further. "Last chance."

With one last spike of strength, Cinder lunged for her hand, pulling Pyrrha down. Pyrrha stumbled, re-balancing with her makeshift crutch. Cinder's other hand grabbed higher on her arm, nails digging into skin at the crook of her elbow — a dead man's grip — and Pyrrha didn't think — just drove the twisted rod of iron through Cinder's back.

Cinder's gasp was a spray of blood. Her hands slipped from Pyrrha's arm and dropped to the ground, twitching. Pyrrha shuddered, gripping the iron rod for balance.

In the distance, the dragon shrieked again. It almost drowned out the whisper of her name.

"...Pyrrha?"

She turned to find Ruby, looking miniscule in the light of the broken moon. Crouched at the edge of the shattered tower. She was staring, eyes wide.

Pyrrha tried to grab the rod and step away. The motion moved Cinder so unnaturally, that Pyrrha startled and staggered back on her bad foot. It couldn't support her weight, and she fell on her hip, just paces away from Cinder who was still alive enough to hold her gaze.

"I didn't mean to," Pyrrha whispered, her mind, at last, catching up to what it was she'd done. "I tried to help. I didn't... _I didn't—_ "

Ruby moved towards her now. Carefully. Like she was approaching an easily startled Grimm. "Pyrrha, you had to."

Ruby understood. Ruby understood when she didn't. Ruby didn't have to do it. Pyrrha dragged herself back, further from Cinder, whose eyes had at last gone dim. Any kind of light — snuffed out.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

It was the last thought Pyrrha ever had before something brilliant exploded out of Cinder. Then the world as she knew it caught fire.

* * *

Jaune was going to throw up.

He'd run as fast as his legs could carry him and faster. He'd stripped off his armor plating, his pockets and pouches, anything that wasn't Crocea Mors so he could run faster. In his mind, he already knew he wasn't going to make it. He saw the dragon take out the tower. He knew that already double the time had passed that Ozpin was able to stand against Cinder. He knew — and he kept running.

His family believed in an old god, one who granted visions and let you walk through fire. He never thought he'd need to call on a deity when skill and friends — and stupid luck when desperate — were enough to get him out of most scrapes. But as he ran, tapping into aura frantically even though he knew it might cost him any fight at the end of his sprint, he found himself battling tears that threatened to obscure his vision and begging for their lives.

 _Please let Weiss and Ruby have reached her. Please let the three of them be alive. Please please please if I can't save them…if I killed them..._

He turned a corner and barrelled straight into Neptune, sending them both skidding down the empty street.

Neptune recovered faster, scrambling to his feet. "Dude! Where have you been?"

Jaune was gasping too hard to talk. He'd been right about using his aura to run. He had a lot of aura, but he'd also run most of the length of the city of Vale. Neptune came to help him up, but Jaune barely noticed, his eyes trained on the tower.

"C'mon, they've set up a perimeter a couple blocks away," Neptune explained. He tried to loop one of Jaune's arms around his shoulder but he resisted. "Jaune?"

Jaune staggered away from Neptune, tried to start running again, but his legs wouldn't have it. He collapsed up against one of the walls, still trying to move forward towards the tower.

"Crap, man, I think you have a concussion," Neptune muttered, coming over again and trying to help. "There should be medical—"

"Weiss," Jaune wheezed out.

That got Neptune's attention. "What?"

"Ruby," he gasped, pointing to the tower. " _Pyrrha_."

Neptune's expression hardened. When he came to help Jaune again, he threw Jaune's arm over his shoulder with resolve.

"I know where Scarlet and Velvet are," he said.

The shadow of the circling dragon soared over them, blocking out the moon. Jaune stared up at it, at its trajectory, and staggered forward with Neptune as support.

"No time."

* * *

Weiss's form was faltering.

She was swinging more wildly, her strikes landing just to the right of her intended marks. The Grimm were still collapsing around her, but Weiss was going to run out of aura long before the Grimm stopped overrunning Beacon.

"Ruby, _hurry up_ ," she pleaded under her breath, taking out another Griffon with an ice shard.

Two of it's friends dove from above and an ice umbrella easily impaled the pair. She heard the lumbering Ursa behind her and spun for the neat decapitation, but didn't expect the far closer King Taijitu, deadly in its silence, already mid-lunge at her.

A glyph kept its fangs from tearing into her, but the force of the strike still sent her flying. She indented into the wall of the former Beacon tower, it's shards now littering her field of battle. Disoriented, she heard more Grimm drawn to her rising panic and stabbed Myrtenaster into the ground, engulfing herself in a small glacier of ice. The monsters clawed at it, shaving off chunks, but it would hold, if only for a few minutes so she could catch her breath.

Weiss rested against the wall of the tower, untouched by the ice, and assessed the state of her aura and the Dust reserves in her rapier. Time for new strategies.

She was mid-calculating if she had enough glyphs left to get her up the side of the tower as well when the ice barrier cracked down the middle. Myrtenaster was ready in an instant, but the sound of bullets and the shape of a scythe through the blur of the ice let her relax a second longer. She waited for the all clear from Ruby, but instead jumped at Qrow's voice.

"You done playing hide-and-seek, Schnee?"

Weiss dispelled the ice in one motion. Qrow stood before her amid an ocean of dissolving Grimm. He held his scythe over his shoulder, looking intense. He must have been sober.

"Ruby's at the top of the tower with that woman!" Weiss shouted, pointing up. "She and Pyrrha haven't come down."

Qrow scowled at the top of the tower, then at Weiss. "How'd she get up there?"

Weiss huffed but eyed the approaching swarm of Beowolves critically. She cast an ice wall wide, then spun and aimed her glyphs up the side of the tower, as she'd done for Ruby.

"If you don't come back with both of them, you're going to get your butt kicked by the _other_ Schnee sister," she said, already paying attention to the oncoming Grimm. Qrow was gone so quickly, she wasn't even sure he'd heard her.

Weiss readied a lightning strike and held her position. As the first Grimm charged through the wall, she swung Myrtenaster and sent it flying. She prepared a second strike but faltered.

The air around her suddenly spiked in temperature. Her ice wall melted without her control. The Grimm staggered back in the sudden heat.

Weiss didn't waste the distraction. She disposed of the pack quickly, struggling only with the Alpha who seemed less affected. It caught Myrtenaster in its teeth and Weiss cut off its snout before impaling it in the eye.

Then Weiss glanced up the tower. She couldn't see Qrow. She couldn't see anything but the one burning spot of light atop.

Weiss Schnee knew Dust. She knew Dust backwards and forwards and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what she was witnessing was _not_ a result of Dust.

Signal training told her to save her reserves of aura and Dust, to keep them for an emergency. Beacon training said hold your position, your friends are going to need you on the offensive.

But the sight of a _sun_ where no sun should be was already propelling Weiss into the air, bouncing glyph to glyph as she raced to make the height of the tower before she lost anyone else.

* * *

Pyrrha had been ready for a lot of things with the Maiden's powers. She had been prepared to die. She'd been prepared to lose herself to the aura of a different person, to have her memories stripped away and merged. She'd been prepared for a power she couldn't understand or control.

No one had told her about the voices.

Dozens of them — hundreds, perhaps — all in her mind, all talking at once. Women, all of them. Pyrrha knew some of the names abruptly, as well as she knew her own. She knew them by voice, by memory, crowding out things she knew of herself, like her favorite colors or what she was supposed to do next when her skin was on fire.

She struggled to remember her training. Trying to think was like wrestling metal pokers into her eyes, splitting her skull with pain. She remembered that little girl on the mat. But she remembered another little girl on a farm, burning clear a field of crops with a thought. She remembered killing the Grimm that had murdered a brother she didn't have. She remembered being ten and kissing a girl for the first time, though she'd never kissed—

Jaune.

The name brought everything back into focus. Her eyes flew open, meeting the eyes of a panicked silver-eyed girl who was attempting to carry her.

"Pyrrha! Pyrrha, come on! That dragon's coming back!"

The sound of her name. It cast the memories to the back of her awareness. She struggled to find her voice amid the choir in her head.

"Ru-Ruby?" she tried, her tongue thick in her mouth. Was that the sound of her voice? Ruby looked down at her, from her frantic scan of the sky, and Pyrrha saw her own reflection in the girl's mirror eyes.

 _This is you_ , a voice inside her head urged. She couldn't tell if it was her own. _This is us. There is a dragon coming. You are in danger._

"We're in danger," Pyrrha repeated, struggling to find her footing. She took one step and the pain from her torn calf ripped through her leg, letting loose a blast of withering heat from her body.

The silver-eyed girl — Ruby, her name was Ruby — jumped back from the sudden burning. Pyrrha collapsed on the ground.

 _You're bleeding out,_ Amber's voice informed her, to which Cinder replied, _Let her._

 _Metal is your armor,_ one more voice chorused. _Metal and fire. You are metal and fire and it can save you, child._

Pyrrha remembered something like this, a sword to a femoral artery. A burning hand closing the wound. Pyrrha reached down to her leg, the metal plates of her shin guards shifting and stacking like scales over the entirety of her lower leg. She made a fist and the metal became hot. She screamed.

The dragon shrieked nearby. Pyrrha heard the sound of a gun loading and the desperate little noises Ruby made when she was trying to think under pressure.

 _You cannot kill a dragon like a Grimm. A dragon is also metal and fire,_ the same voice said. Georgina, Pyrrha thought alongside the voice. And she remembered — Georgina remembered — being clad in aquamarine steel, a sword of metal and fire as large as she was tall, and a dragon the size of a mountain bearing down.

Pyrrha released her fist. Instantly, the scorching metal turned ice cold, soothing the burn.

"How... How do we kill it?" Pyrrha asked. But the moment she did, she already knew. The memories of Georgina and others older told her. Dragons were Grimm so ancient, they had hearts. You cut the head of a Grimm, but you cut the heart of a dragon.

Ruby shouted at Pyrrha to try and crawl to the elevator shaft, she was going to try and distract it. The voices shouted too, arguing over the silver-eyed girl. She could take the dragon, some said, she had silver eyes. Others knew that was a power Ruby had not mastered. They all agreed: If she tried to take it's head, she'd die.

"Ruby! Don't!" Pyrrha shouted. Ruby opened her mouth to argue, but a figure appeared behind her, as if from the very air. Qrow grabbed Ruby and told her something Pyrrha was unable to hear. Ruby looked desperately to Pyrrha, unwilling to listen. Then Qrow pulled Ruby with him and the two vanished out of her sight.

 _Qrow has her,_ Amber said. _He protected me. He'll protect her._

A young voice spoke — Faith, only fifteen and excited — her words laced with a smile and a cheer. _Get to work, Nikos._

Pyrrha knew then, as Cinder knew, how to pull metal from around her, to melt it in the air, to make your weapons for you. Miló arrived in her grip, hot from its reformation at the very points it had split. It's handle was still wet with Cinder's blood. Pyrrha extended it to a javelin and used it to get up, leaning heavily against it. Akoúo̱ dropped from her back to her arm. The dragon tightened its circle.

 _Not enough,_ one of the voices said. Elphaba, green-haired in her memory, violet eyes that Pyrrha had seen somewhere before. _Fire and metal and fear,_ she said, and Elphaba remembered how to make them afraid, and Pyrrha did too.

She burned, bright as a star. The light glowing off her skin, her armor, her weapons. Grimm were afraid of Dust because it was light. They would fear her too. Pyrrha was light now too.

The dragon's head snapped in her direction.

More metal came. Miló piled layers and layers until the javelin should have been too large to hold. Her Semblance kept it aloft. From the wreckage, she rebuilt the armor of her leg with a thought, keeping the shell around her injury in place.

The dragon rose up from it's arc, shrieked, and dove for her.

She didn't need anyone's memories to remember timing and wind speed and accuracy. She knew them like her own name. She felt them like she felt the burning in this new aura that was and wasn't hers.

Pyrrha Nikos couldn't stand. But the Fall Maiden could fly.

Pyrrha launched herself into the air — and mutely wondered, in her own voice, if this was destiny all along.

* * *

Author's Note: So this was originally written as a one-shot, but I decided to try it out as a full story. Currently, the outline sits at 12 chapters but don't hold me to that. It's my first RWBY fic (cross-posted a month ago on AO3) and I'm still unsure if it's any good. I'm new to the show/FNDM/community and am nervous I have no idea what I'm doing or am attempting to write something that has been written already by someone else, and written better. I just had a lot of Pyrrha Nikos feels and RWBY fic ideas, and then had the one idea that could incorporate all the other ideas.

If you like the style/idea, just a couple words of encouragement would mean the absolute world to me.

Cover Image courtesy of kingovan on tumblr.

Chapter Title: "Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" -The Tyger, William Blake


	2. dismantle the sun

Before Weiss Schnee learned how to decapitate an Ursa, or use her Semblance, or do her multiplication tables, she learned about color theory. Red was the primary color. A person will see the color red before they see anything else.

It kept her eyes trained on the glowing red dot, a hundred feet overhead and dancing around a dragon the size of her family's mansion. A gut feeling alone told her it was Pyrrha Nikos, because logic said what she was watching was impossible.

But color theory did not lie.

"Weiss!" Ruby's voice came from the rubble, and next the heiress knew, Ruby was at her side, unfolding Crescent Rose. "Weiss, thank goodness. We need to help her. Can you aim me?"

Weiss glanced between Ruby and the massive monster, dripping ooze and trying to catch Pyrrha like a child catches a firefly. "I can try. But there's no guarantee—"

Qrow put a firm hand on each girl's shoulder. "No."

"But Uncle Qrow, Pyrrha stole Cinder's powers or something!" Ruby stammered. "Actually, I don't know how she did that, but she shoots fire now! And she flies! Could Cinder always fly?"

Qrow made to pull them back from the edge of the tower as it creaked beneath them. "We need to get back to the safe zone."

"But Pyrrha—!"

The tower shuddered. A set of clocktower gears lifted off, glowing molten red, and shot straight up through the air, spinning like shuriken. They sliced into the dragon's arm, it's tail, it's face. It roared, exposing it's breast. Miló, three times the size of Pyrrha now, flew from her side. The dragon rolled and the strike aimed at its heart lodged in its shoulder. It thrashed at Pyrrha who sent a blast of fire down its gaping jaws.

"Trust me," Qrow said, and Weiss felt his grip on her shoulder turn painful. "We'd only get in her way."

Her own grip on Myrtenaster tightened. She exchanged a look with Ruby, torn.

The younger girl glanced at Pyrrha, then once more at her uncle, before sadly collapsing Crescent Rose.

"I trust you, Uncle Qrow," Ruby murmured. She nodded to her teammate. "Get us down, Weiss."

Weiss summoned the appropriate glyph. Qrow and Ruby quickly stood on it, but a flash of red in the sky caught Weiss's eye once more.

She turned to Qrow. "What's happened to her?"

Qrow beckoned Weiss to stand on the glyph. It began to swiftly lower them to the ground, further and further away from Pyrrha and the dragon. " _That_ , Schnee, is what I like to call a six beer conversation."

* * *

"Alright, move aside," Neptune called to the line of Atlesian soldiers holding the perimeter. "Big damn heroes coming through."

A handful of soldiers turned from their guard to watch the two hunters stagger up to their barricade. One held up a hand. "Sirs, you need to step back."

"Please! You've got to let us through," Jaune pleaded. They had to, because Jaune had barely enough aura to stand upright, let alone shove over a man in full military armor. In the distance, he could see Cinder, a firefly of light, dancing around the black dragon in the sky. He desperately hoped that meant she was distracted and that the girls stood a chance of escaping.

Another soldier turned, took one good look at Jaune, and began radioing for medical personnel.

"Our friends are on the other side," Neptune protested, "and yeah, okay, I'm 90% sure this guy has a concussion, but it can wait!"

"Ironwood's orders, hunter," the first soldier said. "Please step back."

The medics came out in moments, joined by a desperate-looking Sun.

"Ruby? Weiss?" he asked, looking to Jaune. Jaune shook his head.

"They're at Beacon tower," Neptune explained. "Pyrrha too."

One of the medics tried to wrangle Jaune out of Neptune's support, to get him on a stretcher, and Jaune almost punched him.

Sun exchanged a look with Neptune that told him all he needed to know. The Faunus swore under his breath. In an instant, Sun's staff was in his hands, ready for the attack. "Alright, men, now we can do this the easy way—"

"That's enough," Glynda's voice sounded out. The medics parted as Glynda stepped forward. She flashed her riding crop through the air decisively and Jaune went skidding across the space and onto a stretcher. "Qrow has been sent to retrieve your friends," Glynda said evenly, her eyes sparking. "I am not losing a single student more. Are we clear, Mr. Arc?"

Jaune started to get up, but another flash of riding crop and he was restrained, pinned to the stretcher by his arms. Glynda turned to Sun and Neptune with a look to solder steel. Sun put away his staff. Neptune's arms, itching from the burn of supporting Jaune, relaxed to his sides. Glynda gestured with her free hand and they willingly stepped back from the Atlesian soldiers.

"Make sure he gets to the infirmary," Glynda instructed. Neptune and Sun opened their mouths to protest, but Glynda's riding crop flicked threateningly and they shut up.

Jaune thrashed in his stretcher. "You don't understand! Ozpin said—"

Glynda nodded her head at the medics, who injected something into Jaune's arm. He stilled.

"Believe you me, Mr. Arc," Glynda intoned, adjusting her glasses, "I understand the situation quite well."

The associate headmaster offered the Mistral boys a cursory glance, then stepped up to the Atlesian soldiers. They hesitated, unsure of where the woman in front of them stood in the hierarchy of order. One look from Glynda convinced them to step aside. They rippled apart, leaving an opening for Glynda to stride through, a queen in her castle.

Over her shoulder, she locked eyes with Jaune, who was fading fast with his sedative. She faltered for a second, unable to hold his gaze. Then walked out towards what remained of Beacon, and the battle being fought above it.

* * *

The dragon was slow, pure solid muscle, roiling in the air. Except it knew to watch its heart, which made it very difficult for Pyrrha to reach it. The moon was on all sides of her at any moment, making it impossible to track time. There was no other fighting left. She saw no soldiers, no other Grimm. It was only her and the dragon, alone in the sky. In her head, the Maidens sang.

 _Lower, stronger,_ Georgina said. _His left flank is weak. He will compensate for it._

Pyrrha dropped down, left, and flew straight up. Miló trailed her like a satellite.

 _He's scared,_ Elphaba said. _You've lasted longer than he thought._

 _Stay untouchable,_ came Faith, eagerly _._

 _Stay brave_ , said Amber.

Other voices sounded their encouragement. The great beast rolled again. His wing almost slapped her out of the sky.

Pyrrha's body knew how to do things she'd never trained it for. He mind knew more than any mind should. But her leg still ached. Her eyes still burned. She reacted, she listened, but thinking brought blinding pain.

 _Be quiet,_ someone whispered, and the voices hushed from a roar to a murmur. Pyrrha imagined the voice might've been her own, but a vision of Alexandria appeared in her mind. Alexandria in gold and white, dark-skinned and blue-eyed, breeding patience.

Pyrrha gripped Miló with the force of her thoughts as the dragon turned on itself and lunged at the air where she had been moments ago. She remembered a history lesson from a erratic green-haired professor, how ancient dragons had trouble seeing above them. Pyrrha shot upwards. She remembered walking in a forest of perpetual scarlet leaves to collect sap and seeing a baby bird, its wings broken on the ground, waiting to die. Pyrrha drew back her arm and took aim with Miló.

The dragon beat it's wings upwards. Pyrrha threw.

* * *

The ground around Nora shook. It rattled the glowing glass screens, the metal walls, and her in her infirmary bed aboard the last remaining ship. The nurse attending her shot of fluids exchanged a panicked look with her co-worker. The two dashed from the room without a second thought.

"That...wasn't good," Ren said from the bed next to hers. He remained ever the master of understatement.

"Can you stand?" Nora asked, scrambling out of her hospital bed as swiftly as her broken arm and bruised kidney allowed.

Ren tried to sit up but hissed through his teeth. His fractured ribs were less compliant. Nora injected herself with the fluid shot her nurse had been preparing and shot up Ren too for good measure. She tossed Stormflower and Magnhild onto the bed.

"What would you do without me?" she said, grabbing Ren's hospital bed with her good arm and pulling it behind her. She tried to keep the smile in her voice as they passed Yang and Blake's beds. Both girls had been put under for their injuries. She hadn't been able to escape her medical captors yet to make sure her teammates had been recovered in one piece. Now, she rushed to the exit, deciding half-way down the hall that it was easier to ride Ren's bed like a scooter than drag it.

Predictably, they didn't make it far.

"Get back to your rooms," Ironwood barked at them, blocking their way to the exit. "The ship is taking off."

"Our friends are still out there," Nora argued. They'd had no word of Pyrrha and Jaune, or of Ruby and Weiss who had gone off to retrieve them. "We're not leaving without them."

The general's grip on the foot of the hospital bed was immovable. "The dragon is dead."

"Who—" Ren started, but Ironwood's face was paling and he stopped.

"Something killed it. Something beyond what any of us are capable of fighting. And it's heading this way." He gave the bed a shove, sending Nora stumbling. "Get back to your rooms," he said in a hollow voice.

Nora glared, gripping the other end of Ren's bed just as tightly. "Make us."

A soldier called for Ironwood. He turned to the sound, then back to the two of them. His face flickered to anger before settling on resignation. He released the hospital bed.

"Very well," he said softly and swiftly followed after the man who had called for him. "Tell the men to hold a defense long enough to get this ship in the air," he ordered.

Nora exchanged a look with Ren. "C'mon, then," she said and kicked off, sending the hospital bed speeding down the hall.

Outside, a line of Atlesian soldiers were aiming their guns at something in the sky. In a row just behind them, Neptune and Sun stood among another two dozen hunters, Beacon's last resistance who refused to stay in their hospital beds or safe inside when there was something to be done. They had their weapons at the ready.

It was a bright red light that was flying straight for them, and the bravery Nora was digging deep for stuttered.

She could fight a Grimm blindfolded. But her arm was broken. Her aura was low. And that was a freaking...she didn't think she could stop a comet even on a good day.

"Nora," Ren said suddenly, reaching back to grab her arm. She smiled for him and handed him Stormflower before helping him off the hospital bed into a standing position. They shuffled over to stand by one of the NDGO girls and Yatsuhashi.

Behind them, Ironwood ran out with a small group of soldiers and the ship began to lift into the air.

"Open fire on my mark," he ordered.

The hunters loaded their weapons and took aim. Ren leaned against her to lift Stormflower high enough. Magnhild folded into a grenade launcher in Nora's one good grip. She cradled it in her sling to aim it properly.

There was a flash of red on the ground, just outside the perimeter. The soldiers startled and adjusted their aims as a vortex of rose petals materialized into Ruby.

"Wait! Don't shoot her! Don't shoot!" she shouted, holding her hands up.

A second later, Qrow materialized from the darkness as well, shouting, "Listen to her, don't shoot!"

The comet was almost upon them now. But it was slowing, which Nora was pretty sure comets didn't do.

"Well?" Scarlet asked his teammates and the other hunters gathered around him. Neptune had his weapon trained on the fireball, as did Coco. They all exchanged a look.

"Stand down!" Weiss's voice pleaded from the ruined streets. She and Glynda appeared amid the rubble, their whites easy to spot in the darkness as they ran full speed for the perimeter.

Nora's math quickly realized who was missing — and what was coming. She felt Stormflower tremble in Ren's grip. Magnhild burned in her hands.

"James," Glynda called, "it's Nikos."

* * *

The others disagreed with Pyrrha's decision to fly towards the lights. But there was something among the lights she needed, she knew. She needed to know if she saved them. There was something that mattered there.

 _You are metal and fire now,_ Georgina said again. _Like a dragon. You cannot show your heart. You cannot go back to them._

Pyrrha flew faster. She could outrun the voices.

 _There is more work to do,_ Alexandria insisted. _The Grimm persist. They must be brought to heel._

No, she had to see they were alive. She could live with the power. She could live with the memories and the voices. She could live with the blood on her hands, she knew, but not if it hadn't saved them.

 _Poor little girl,_ Cinder's voice cut through the others. The sound of it biting, bringing physical pain. A glass spike of white-hot something — betrayal, fury? — right in the center of her chest. _She doesn't understand._

 _We can't have them back,_ Amber said softly, and Elphaba agreed, and Pyrrha felt their words pull at her aura like a knot being tied around her throat.

But she had aura in droves. The lights were in her reach. She could reach them. Embrace each and every one. She could protect them from the darkness. She knew… She knew…

 _We can't go back,_ Faith repeated sadly. _You can't go back to who you used to be._

Pyrrha slowed on the landing. She lowered almost to the ground, but instinct told her to stay hovering. Her leg was injured, after all. Miló hovered at her side, stripped of the extra metal it had acquired to fight the dragon, merely the weapon Pyrrha had dedicated her life to. The thought brought memories, and brought her more into herself. She pulled it from the air. It felt solid in her hand, solid on her back as she put it in place besides Akoúo̱. It felt right.

With the feeling bright in her aura, she dug through all the voices for her own, and said, "Is everyone alright?"

The lights flickered around her. They backed away. That felt...less right.

 _We are burning,_ Alexandria said.

One light pushed forward. Not a light, no, a girl. A girl in a red cape and silver-eyes.

"Pyrrha," she said, and the name doused the voices. She wasn't Alexandria or Elphaba. She wasn't any of them. She was Pyrrha. It seemed so obvious now.

"Everyone's okay," Ruby said, and Pyrrha could see her features now. Not a silver ball of aura. She was Ruby. Ruby from the tower, from across the hall, who made noises when she was nervous and liked cookies and lead a team like hers. She was a person. The lights were people, she realized. People who were afraid. "It's over, okay? You don't… You look really scary."

Pyrrha stared at her. Then at the others.

The glowing balls of light that were the other hunters and huntresses were taking shape, each a different color and flaring in different shades of fear. In front of them, there was a line of metal-clad soldiers, each with a weapon raised at her. Each with a reflective visor that showed the same image: a red-haired girl, with eyes trailing fire, glowing from the inside and dressed in molten armor, covered in blood.

"I... I'm…"

The fire was snuffed in an instant. The voices and memories went with it, leaving Pyrrha cold and alone. It left her dropping to the ground with a shredded ACL and so little aura, she couldn't move a paperclip.

She fell straight to her knees, forward onto her face, and down into darkness.

* * *

Author's Note: So, um, _holy shit._ Twenty-five favorites and forty-four followers for a first chapter. Thank you everyone for the kind reviews and lovely faves/follows! If any of you want to stop in and leave a review, I always reply to each and every one.

Since the former Maidens — Alexandria, Elphaba, Georgina, and Faith — will recur, I wanted to make clear who their character bases were. Alexandria takes inspiration from Queen Cleopatra and is named after the great Egyptian Library of Alexandria. Elphaba is, more obviously, the Wicked Witch of the West by way of Gregory Maguire (the guy who wrote _Wicked_ ). Georgina is genderbent St. George the Dragon Slayer from Catholicism. Faith is a composite of the characters of Avatar Korra (protagonist of The Legend of Korra) and Melaka Fray (from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe), which is why Faith is named after another Slayer in that universe. Since I'm pulling a lot from both of those shows in terms of how The Supernatural Legacy transfers power/memories/former lives, I thought it would only be fair to make an Avatar Slayer Maiden.

So we have one from history, one from literature, one from religion, and one from pop culture. If they had all lived concurrently, they would have been team FEGA (Feldgrau) which is an army gray from Germany circa WWII and I know that's ridiculously obscure I didn't plan on making them a team when I named them I'm sorry I've never done this before I'm new.

Chapter Title: "The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; / For nothing now can ever come to any good." -Funeral Blues, W. H. Auden


	3. our hearts in place of brick

When Jaune finally woke up from his forced sedation, and all the panicked nightmares it had trapped him with, he found himself blinking away blurry vision to see he was in a hospital room. The smell of antiseptic and the painfully bright blue lights overhead were the dead giveaways.

Once his eyes adjusted, Jaune glanced around and saw Nora, snoring in the cot by the far wall; in the bed on his other side, Ren played a game on his scroll.

Sheer relief flooded through him at the sight of them — _they were safe they were safe they were safe_ — until he searched the rest of the room and realized. No one else was there.

Jaune's heart. Stopped.

"Pyrrha?" His voice cracked. He suddenly couldn't breathe. "Pyrrha?!"

He pushed up into a sitting position, and the vertigo that hit him was intense enough that he fell back almost immediately.

"Jaune," Ren called over. Jaune could barely hear him through the sudden ringing in his ears. "Hey, hey look at me." Ren eyed him intently. As if Ren could look at anyone and not see straight through their soul. "She's here," he reassured. "Nora and I saw her. She's alive."

Jaune struggled to sit up a second time, slower, and his eyes flicked to Nora for confirmation. She was awake, pushing herself up with the arm that wasn't in a cast. A smile spread across her face at the sight of Jaune.

"Ruby?" he said, looking between Nora and Ren. "Weiss?"

"We're all alright," Ren promised.

Jaune let that sink in. It was near impossible to believe. He threw his covers off, desperate to check on everyone. Personally.

"That's probably not—" Ren started but Jaune was already swinging his feet over the side of the bed. He took a step to stand and the room spun wildly in front of his eyes.

"Jaune, _lie down_ ," Nora barked.

Jaune thumped back down to the bed, bending his head between his knees to keep the white fireflies of light from dancing in front of his eyes. He balled and un-balled his hands and fought through the lump in his throat — his team wasn't together yet they weren't _together —_ to try and talk. His voice sounded foreign to him, slurring and cracking on all the wrong notes.

"Where...are we?" he asked, figuring that was an easy question.

Ren and Nora patiently relayed the little they knew. They were somewhere in Atlas, where they'd been evacuated after leaving Vale roughly twenty-four hours ago. They didn't have any windows so there was no way to tell where precisely. They caught glimpses of soldiers posted in front of their room whenever the door opened for their nurses. Combined with the fact that Stormflower, Magnhild, and Crocea Mors had all been confiscated upon their arrival, Ren and Nora were left with all kinds of bad vibes. By the way Weiss came to check-up on them at her leisure, however, Nora was reasonably confident that wherever they were, the Schnee Dust Company had a controlling investment in it.

Jaune focused hard on the single cracked tile on the floor between his feet and steeled his nauseous stomach for a less easy question.

"Where's Pyrrha?"

He felt the look Ren and Nora exchanged behind his back.

"The adults should explain," Ren said at the same time Nora asked, "What do you remember?"

Jaune took the deepest breath he could manage. Careful to enunciate as much as possible, he told his team about the vault, about the girl with the scarred eye, about Pyrrha screaming behind the glass. Everything that came after was jumbled and out of order in his mind, no doubt a result of his concussion. Jaune remembered calling Weiss about Pyrrha, but struggled for a solid minute before he remembered about what. He recalled the feeling of flying and running until he thought he would die, but the remainder of the night was full of moments that were either fuzzy — had he really been in a rocket locker? when had he decided to start running? — or ungrounded from the events surrounding them. The only thing he remembered with one hundred and ten percent clarity was the unbridled desperation. The terror that he was about to lose everything he cared about because he hadn't been enough.

His teammates filled in some of the blanks for him: Weiss got his call and went after Cinder with Ruby for backup; Neptune found him on the streets running purely on adrenaline and aura; he had suffered a _very_ definite concussion.

And there had been a bright burning...something, in the sky. It killed the dragon, and flew at them wearing Pyrrha's face.

Jaune chanced raising his head to look at Nora. "But she's alright?"

"I have no idea," Nora muttered. She was abruptly very interested in the ridges of her cast. "You should have seen her, Jaune. She didn't…" She trailed off.

"We hardly recognized her," Ren finished sadly.

A nurse came in then and coaxed Jaune back into his bed fully as the blonde tried to process all of that. He tried to puzzle together the vault, the girl, and the machine; Ozpin, Cinder, and Pyrrha; the dragon, the soldiers, and the light. Any kind of math he tried all lead to the same result: Pyrrha should have been dead. That scared him more than any Grimm, dragon or otherwise.

When the nurse left, he turned to his teammates and told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were getting answers.

Within six hours of Jaune being awake, Glynda and Ironwood came to talk to them. The adults confirmed that Pyrrha was alive and reassured Jaune and his team that she was in good hands, that they would all be able to go home soon. But something about their postures, the way they said 'good hands' rubbed Jaune the wrong way. Neither Ironwood nor Glynda would look at him directly. When he demanded to see her, Glynda regarded him critically. She said that Team JNPR would be able to see her as soon as she was cleared. She wouldn't say from what. They left with Nora calling them a couple of things that might have gotten her expelled if she'd still been at school.

Eventually, they learned of the other hunters. _All_ the other hunters. Sun and Neptune showed up first, having snuck out of their guarded room, in the best shape out of the whole group. But per the Mistral boys, the whole group _was_ there, wherever in Remnant's name they were. All the hunters and huntresses that had stayed behind to fight had been accounted for — the ones who had needed serious treatment for their injuries, the ones who had already recovered from their minor injuries, and the ones who managed to make it out unscathed. They'd been kept to guarded quarters, sectioned off by school and by team. They had been occasionally let outside the supposed hospital to large courtyards, closely monitored by military personnel. With the CCT down, none had been able to reach friends or family.

Weiss was less helpful than Jaune would have hoped. When she came to visit JNPR after checking in on Yang and Blake for the umpteenth times, Weiss revealed that the other hunters, Ruby especially, had already been hounding her on the topic of where they were and why. She knew they were at a Schnee owned facility and that her father had been in talks with Ironwood, that was about the extent of it. She had yet to see him herself, mostly out of stubbornness, though she'd promised Ruby to take the next meeting with her father to try and get some answers.

When Jaune asked about Pyrrha, Weiss described the same things Nora and Ren had, albeit with more detail. She said Ruby had been quick to reassure her that the person flying and shooting fire and holding her own against a dragon _was_ Pyrrha, that she'd witnessed _something_ happen to her on top of the tower, but Weiss couldn't confirm that in good conscience. She could only speak to what she herself witnessed, and it _looked_ like Pyrrha, but none of it made sense. And according to Weiss, much like Weiss's own father and the other adults, Qrow had yet to explain anything to Ruby, saying that there was a delicate way of doing it and he sure as hell shouldn't be the one attempting it. He did _promise_ an explanation though, which was more than anyone else had.

Jaune spent the next two days collecting as much information as he could — from his friends, from the other teams, from Weiss, from snippets of conversation between soldiers in the hallways — and putting a plan together. When Jaune could stand on his own and take stock of the vaguely-hospital-like, vaguely-military-like facilities for himself, he snuck room to room and talked to Team CFVY and the teams from Mistral, Vacuo, and Atlas. They all shared the same suspicion: they were being kept because they'd seen something they shouldn't have. Namely, a girl on fire.

At night, Jaune laid awake and stared at the ceiling, listening to Nora's light snores and Ren's shaky breaths as his ribs knit themselves back together. His ears strained to hear a fourth steady breath, the fourth shuffle of sheets in the dark that typically accompanied the feeling of being home, of keeping the people most important to him safe. He never heard it.

When he fell asleep, he dreamt she'd kissed him.

On the third night, Sun and Neptune made their way to JNPR's room dressed as Atlesian military, more for thrill than because anyone would buy it. Under the guise of a covered medical cart, Weiss brought them all their weapons and Ruby and more news. While Weiss could come and go wherever she pleased, she'd decided to test that assumption and found there was a particular guarded hallway in the basement that she'd attempted to enter and had been barred from.

"If Pyrrha's anywhere, she's there," Ruby declared. She adjusted her volume when several people shushed her. "Sorry. If she's anywhere, she's definitely in the secret underground lair," she whispered. She was sitting beside Nora on her cot and Nora held out her cast so that Ruby could see the hearts she was doodling a little better in the dark.

"Hardly," Weiss answered. She was cross-legged at the foot of Jaune's bed. That might have tickled his fancy once upon a time, but he barely paid it any mind now. "You should have seen the way that place looked." She shivered. "It looked like it used to be a dungeon. Where they had caged Ursa matches or something."

By the door, making sure no one would walk in on their plotting, Neptune asked, "Why did they tell you not to go in?"

"They said it was...dangerous."

"Then maybe it wasn't Pyrrha," Jaune said.

A silence passed over the room. Jaune got a little mad.

"It's _Pyrrha._ She couldn't—" The image of Penny and the sound of straining metal came to mind. Jaune shook his head. "She _wouldn't_ hurt anyone. Not on purpose."

The silence persisted a little longer. Sun broke it.

"You didn't see her, man. She was... Crap, how would you even explain it?"

"...She wasn't herself," Ruby said, when no other answer emerged from the group. She looked at Jaune. An understanding passed between them — Ruby had seen everything and Jaune had seen nothing and the truth was somewhere in the middle, he could feel it — then she turned to Sun, conviction written in every line of her face. "But it _was Pyrrha_."

That seemed to end discussion on the topic.

"So," Ren said, meticulously dis- and reassembling Stormflower in his lap. "What's the plan?"

Jaune flipped over his empty food tray and held up a hand. Ruby tossed him an extra marker. He began drawing.

"Weiss, tell me everything about this hallway."

* * *

In Jacque Schnee's private office, Glynda paced impatiently. "We can't keep them here indefinitely."

"No one used the word indefinitely," Ironwood argued from one of the guest chairs.

Glynda rounded on him with a glare. "That's precisely what 'indefinitely' implies, _James._ "

The general folded his hands over his knee and attempted to placate the pacing woman in front of him. "We have to treat this delicately. You know that."

In the corner of the room, Qrow took a long drink. "For once, Ironheart and I agree on something."

Glynda cut a scathing look between both men. "Forgive my lack of faith in your bedside manner."

"Why shouldn't they be let go?" Jacque Schnee interrupted. The man was sitting behind his desk, wordless up until that point, watching the three with the critical eye of a businessman.

Glynda and Ironwood exchanged a push-and-pull of a look. Qrow rolled his eyes and kept drinking. The Schnee patriarch had a very nice selection of scotch.

Schnee scowled and slammed a hand on his desk. "I've lent you my good faith and my facilities in the wake of Beacon's loss, Ms. Goodwitch, the very least you can offer me is answers."

"We've told you everything that's necessary for you to know," Glynda said frostily.

Schnee turned to Ironwood, raising a brow. "General?"

"James," Glynda warned, but Ironwood was already standing. He turned to Jacque Schnee.

"We have, at present, no less than thirty hunters and a hundred Atlesian military personnel who first-hand experienced, for lack of a more appropriate word, a miracle. A secret, as Ms. Goodwitch and I previously explained, that individuals such as ourselves have been meticulously hiding from the world for hundreds of years." Ironwood's expression grew dark. "If this spreads, the panic might be enough to bring another one of those dragons down on us."

"It won't," Schnee said firmly. "Beacon tower was lost. Communications are down all over the kingdoms."

"But they won't be forever," Ironwood continued. "With the dragon gone, Vale's own military have been clearing out Beacon in waves. It won't be long before we have the tower, and the school, back in function."

"You cannot quarantine over a hundred people, a portion of them minors from other kingdoms, until that happens," Schnee said. "If that is what Miss Goodwitch is arguing—"

"I agree," Ironwood said. "But we can't let them go without some kind of countermeasure. And we can't take any decisive measure until the medics clear—"

"We've worked too damn hard for this," Qrow interrupted, refilling his flask with a different brandy from the alcohol cart in the room. "They're teenagers and military men. Neither are known for keeping their mouths shut."

"We assure you, the soldiers and hunters will be removed from their quarantine as soon as possible, Mr. Schnee," Glynda said, in a tone of voice meant to end the conversation.

"As soon as we are confident they can maintain a semblance of discretion," Ironwood tacked on. He looked once at Glynda and Qrow and then at the door, deep in thought. "Eventually, we will have to make a formal statement on the matter."

Schnee huffed at the concept. "What about the girl?"

"She isn't the first transition that our society has helped smooth over," Ironwood assured. "The most public, surely. But she can be brought to understanding."

"If anyone can handle the legacy of the Fall Maiden, Pyrrha Nikos can," Glynda said.

The scroll in General Ironwood's pocket flashed once. He pulled it out, frowned at the screen that flashed twice quickly, then began pulsing at double the speed, intensity increasing.

Then the room violently shook. Like it was hit by a truck. It knocked books from their shelves, rattled the chandelier above them.

Ironwood and Schnee got to their feet. Glynda pulled out her riding crop and stilled the quivering glass.

Qrow tightened his hand on his flask, taking another pull as the others rushed towards the door.

"Tell that to Pyrrha Nikos."

* * *

Jaune's plan went into effect within an hour of coming up with it.

Sun and Neptune were the distraction. They very obviously attempted to break into the hallway — talking loudly of their plans, messing around with their stolen outfits, flashing their weapons openly. They were _so_ obvious, they were caught by the guards in less than a minute. The Mistral boys put up a hefty resistance to being apprehended and so both guardsmen had to forcibly escort them back to their quarters. They radioed in for a second pair of guards to cover their shift.

Those were intercepted one floor above, by Weiss and Ruby, asking questions about how to get around. Weiss commanded their attention, being the heiress apparent, and Ruby was a little less obvious about her attempted sneaking, skirting around the men towards the stairs and then trying to speed past them with her Semblance. When they whirled from Weiss and attempted to stop her, Ruby let herself get caught, made herself tiny and silly and as harmless as possible, asking if there was a bathroom that way. Behind the guardsmen, Weiss facepalmed. Ruby and Weiss were escorted from the area, with the guards promising a talk with General Ironwood and a quick return of both girls to their rooms. So quick, it was almost ridiculous to call for a third set of replacement guards in the span of a couple minutes.

That left Ren, Nora, and Jaune to _actually_ break in. Nora was put on guard at the door of the hallway, more than enough to handle any guards if they returned early — cast-arm or not. Ren and Jaune passed through the double doors to an impressive-looking stone corridor and darted room to empty room, following the line of what looked like jail-cells turned living quarters. It wasn't long before they found the one door that was shut.

Something pulled Jaune towards that particular room — literally _pulled him_. There was a steady tug on Crocea Mors at his hip, on his belt-buckles too, in that direction. Even the eyelets in his sneakers felt the attraction. He exchanged a look with Ren, whose sleeves with Stormflower inside, were lifting weakly towards the door.

He dared to hope.

Jaune stripped off the belts and sword, kicked off his shoes for good measure. He handed the former to Ren.

"Anyone comes, you warn me with enough time to get her out," Jaune said.

Ren took the items he was handed and looked like he wanted to say something. He stood half-hunched, one arm wrapped delicately around his midsection. But after a beat, he chose to keep it to himself. Instead, he nodded.

Jaune pushed the wooden door open and dimly wondered why it wasn't locked. It took him a moment to realize locking a door required a bolt, which required metal.

Inside, the room was a mess. Unlike their pseudo-hospital rooms, the place looked like it might have been a bedroom. Books littered the floor. Shelves laid splintered, and Jaune had to tiptoe around them in his socks. Sturdier objects were thrown around haphazardly, like a tornado had torn through the space. In one corner, a machine imbedded into the wall beeped steadily.

In the center of the room was a bed. And in it—

They'd cut her hair. It was loose, jagged and uneven, only to her shoulders. One of her legs was elevated by some medical contraption, the lower part of it covered by a golden metal plate. Her arms were in restraints that looked like plastic tubing, welded shut around her wrists and to the sides of her — also plastic — children's bed with some kind of solvent superglue. The bed was low to the ground. And cemented to the floor.

Jaune came to her side. She didn't stir when he touched her arm, deathly still in sleeping, but she _was_ sleeping. Her chest rose and fell and Jaune suddenly had trouble standing because _she was alive._ She was _alive._ He let himself feel it, exhilaration dispelling the last lingering doubts that he'd been lied to the last three days. He put a hand to her pulse and touched his forehead to hers and let himself _feel_ it. Her aura against his, in his every nerve and every vein — for all of one blissful moment — before he wiped his eyes and got to work.

"Pyrrha?" He shook her gently, pulled haltingly at her restraints. "Pyrrha, can you hear me?"

Jaune hadn't truthfully expected a reaction. But Pyrrha made a sound, deep in her throat. Her brow furrowed. Her leg shifted in its high-tech sling. The beeping machine skipped a beat. It beeped twice in succession, paused, then significantly sped up.

Her fingers flexed, reaching. Jaune put his hand in hers.

* * *

First came the noises.

Hushed whispers and solemn declarations. Medical machinery. Voices that Pyrrha recognized and feared were in her own head. Some with words, some without. Music, far away.

Then came the pain.

Her leg, certainly. It throbbed below her knee. But her shoulder too burned uncomfortably. Her throat felt raw. Her body was sore all over. Joints felt like they were grinding together.

Slowly, Pyrrha blinked one eye open, then the other.

She was laying in a field of grass and leaves, looking up at an auburn sky. No, not a sky. A canopy of trees, interwoven so closely it was like there was no sky above her. Confusion won out against discomfort and Pyrrha twisted her head, looking to her sides. Trees surrounded her, their thick trunks weaving a pattern that didn't let her see beyond them.

Pyrrha shut her eyes again, trying to make sense. This wasn't Forever Fall — the leaves were too muted, not brilliant and burning. She could still hear machinery beeping and sounds that didn't make sense, with echoes off stone or tile. She fought to remember something.

...nothing came to mind. Nothing at all.

No memories of where she was or how she got there. When she tried to remember why she ached, the pain simmered into the back of her awareness. Words failed her when she reached for them. Her name was lost to the sky of trees. The gentle breeze on her face. Leaves in her hair. The sound of shuddering and nature shedding its past.

Glass heels on stone.

Pyrrha jolted upright. Cinder stood over her, one hand on her hip. She looked down on Pyrrha with the same hate-anger-hurt that had laced her tone in Pyrrha's head.

"The invincible girl," she said coldly. "How could you have known."

Pyrrha tried to scramble back, but her arms were restrained at her sides by an invisible force. She pulled desperately but only proceeded to make the pain in her shoulder worse.

" _You_ didn't know either," another voice retaliated. Pyrrha looked back, craned her neck to see Amber standing just behind her head, arms crossed. If Cinder's anger was glass, Amber's was ice. She was dressed in her hospital bandages, her eye still scarred, her eyes still furious.

"There is nothing either of you could have done," Elphaba said, stepping up on Pyrrha's right, between the women. Her green hair shone against the browns and reds around her. She was in a black dress that made the violet of her eyes exceptionally supernatural. She didn't look at Pyrrha. "There are no words for this."

Faith approached next, young and petite compared to the other women. She had a reckless confidence in her step that struck Pyrrha has intimately familiar. The name escaped her. Faith walked to Pyrrha's other side, kicking leaves. Her belt was lined with wooden weapons, her hair hanging in small wolf-tails on either side of her face. She met Pyrrha's gaze, curious, like a cat on the other side of a fishbowl.

Pyrrha frantically tried again to move, found that she couldn't. She called for metal to defend herself, but though her Semblance caught onto something, nothing came to her hands. She was defenseless as she turned and saw more women emerge from the forest of trees, walking towards her. Faith seemed the youngest, fifteen at most, but the Maidens ranged all the way to an older woman who hunched on a staff that had a crystal of Dust on each end. Some of them, Pyrrha could have sworn, were just shapes of women with no discernible features. Dozens of them came. Hundreds. They crowded around Pyrrha, blocking her view of the trees. Some stared silently at her, others at each other. Cinder got her fair share of angry looks.

Georgina approached behind Faith — twice her size, dressed in aquamarine armor and dragon's blood. The armor was familiar. Almost. The shape of her chest plates and the sword at her side stirring something feral inside Pyrrha. She kicked wildly and found that pain in her leg wasn't so much gone as muted. It flared with the motion and Pyrrha couldn't find her voice to scream.

Georgina smirked. The Maidens murmured. Far away, something made a sound like a siren. Pyrrha heard a voice.

"You are scaring her."

The crowd split, dividing like the sea, and Alexandria came to the front, in white fabric that blew in the breeze, with metallic gold trim that reflected a light that didn't exist. A black cat's tail, as sable as her hair, flicked gently in the air behind her. She stood beside Cinder, who did not part as easily. But even Cinder deferred, stepping back from Pyrrha. The others, the hundreds, stepped back as well — back and back — until they were lost to Pyrrha's peripheral vision, lost behind the forest of trees.

Only Georgina, Faith, Elphaba, Amber, and Cinder remained, their circle around Pyrrha looser. Watching Pyrrha, and each other. Then they too turned and departed without a word. Leaving Pyrrha alone with Alexandria.

"I am sorry," the faunus woman said, getting on her knees so that Pyrrha had to look down the length of her own body to see her. "We cannot choose which parts of our auras are caught by the sieve." She put her hand on Pyrrha's bad leg. "We cannot choose anything, I'm afraid."

In a gust, the trees shifted around her, the canopy above betraying something bright behind it. She could hear rapid beeping, breath or breeze on her face. Pyrrha looked to Alexandria, pleading. Was she dead? Where was she? What was this? But the question that burned the most, that thumped in her ears along with her heart, was _why._ Why why why.

Alexandria looked out to the trees, above to the sky. Her blue eyes then met Pyrrha's.

"I am sorry," she said again, cautiously coming around to the huntress's side. With soft hands, Alexandria passed her fingers through red hair. She planted a kiss on her forehead. "You are braver than most of us ever were."

Then Alexandria leaned close.

" _Pyrrha Nikos,_ " she whispered.

And the world violently shook. The sound of her name was wind — rolling thunder — a firestorm in dying light — an earthquake down her spine — the history of the earth unfolding behind her eyes — and Pyrrha _understood_.

Infinite in distance.

Unbound by death.

* * *

Author's Note: Oh my god, you guys, 38 faves and 75 follows. You are spoiling me! *whispers* don't stop

Okay, so since I'm really doing this, this might be a good place to confess that I've never written a canon-divergent fic before. I've only written either straight up AU or canon compliant material. I'm enjoying the experience, but it is new so I am open to feedback, especially as the chapters go on. This chapter came out extra long with some nice heapfuls of setup and exposition, drawing the line in the sand between where the show canon ends and a whole new world of consequences evolves.

I'm also using this story to practice playing around with time and a reader's perception of it. Like in the first chapter, several of the sections of this chapter occur concurrently. Please let me know if that comes through clearly.

As always, thanks for reading! I respond to all reviews :)

Chapter Title: "We built this out of sweat and spit / With our hearts in place of brick / But I'll burn it to the ground / Before you get your hands on it" -The Bastards The Vultures The Wolves, The Wonder Years


	4. seas catch fire

When Pyrrha came to, it was to the staccato of beeping machines and the sound of someone breathing close by. She awoke to a dull ache in her body and heart, like someone had rearranged the furniture in her aura and scratched all the wooden floors.

Opening her eyes, Pyrrha found herself in a tiny bed surrounded by stone walls and broken bookshelves — and Jaune Arc, fast asleep, with his head in her lap.

Her ribs protested as she took a breath and steeled herself to dig into her mind, to pry loose the memories from the night before amidst recollections of the other million things that now crowded her thoughts. But Pyrrha found what she sought far too easily. Cinder's blood. A darkness blocking the moon. Her eyes on fire.

Like white noise, the Maiden's voices buzzed in the base of her skull, their auras snowy static against her own. Yet they no longer fought for space. They had settled like leaves on a forest floor, content to be still until they were shuffled through or taken up by a breeze. It was pleasant, almost.

Her initial spike of concern satiated, Pyrrha took stock of the room. Stone. No windows. The smell in the air said underground. She was restrained. Among the splintered furniture and scattered objects, an armchair sat on one side of her bed, the only thing perfectly in tact. There were sheets of sudoku tucked into its cushions, filled out with Nora's handwriting and written over, correctly, in Ren's steady script. There were white and red roses in a clay vase on the floor by the foot of her bed. Hanging beside the doorframe were a set of paper cranes, an old Mistrali tradition for wishing someone to get better.

And Jaune was here.

Pyrrha was struck by an impulse to gather Jaune up in her arms, proof that what she saw was real and he was alive and with her. But even if Pyrrha had been so bold, her restraints wouldn't allow it. She focused on the odd cuffs and flexed her Semblance, confirming her suspicion that there was no metal in what was holding her down. Other than the plate on her leg, there wasn't any metal _anywhere._ Not in the door or in the beeping machine or even on Jaune.

No wonder. She was a murderer.

She looked around the room again, at all the artifacts left behind. Maybe they didn't know, Pyrrha thought. Or maybe they did and had already left her. She found an unsettling comfort in both possibilities.

Pyrrha eased back into the bed, shut her eyes, and let everything — _everything —_ come to exist solely in the spot where Jaune's cheek rested against her thigh. She focused on the warm spot of his breath against the thin sheet that separated their skin. It calmed her. She eyed his bandaged forehead, the way he laid with one arm half-circling his face like he'd been covering his eyes from the light. His other hand laid flat on the bed, just shy of hers.

With a little bit of wriggling, Pyrrha found she could brush her fingertips over his knuckles. She was proud of the scars he had there, from her lessons in hand-to-hand combat.

But Pyrrha didn't dare wake him. She wasn't ready. For the anger — _we're partners, Pyrrha_ — and accusations — _how could you —_ and how much he must hate her for doing what she did. Even if it had saved him. Even if it meant he could be with her here, now. If it had been her in that locker, Pyrrha thinks she'd hate herself too.

Jaune made a half-snore, half-cough and Pyrrha's fingers stilled. He burrowed a little further into the muscle of her thigh, the hand under hers curling weakly into the sheets. Pyrrha waited a full minute for him to settle, then resumed her small caresses.

A vision of an auburn forest flickered across her mind's eye. A fluttering of branches. Then, Elphaba's voice.

 _You have to tell him,_ she said, softly. _Don't do this to yourself._

Pyrrha jerked her head to the side. She dislodged the woman from her mind, even as the motion made her head spin. She'd heard Elphaba's advice echoed in everyone from Nora to Coco Adele. Pyrrha knew better. She had long ago accepted the bittersweet gift of being _just_ Pyrrha in Jaune's eyes.

More than anything right now, it was that normalcy she craved. Pyrrha had chosen this — in the vault when Ozpin promised her it would save the world — so she'd bear its consequences, in the eyes of Remnant and her friends. But Pyrrha would willingly bury her heart, forget his kiss, and pretend she never hoped for anything more if it meant that she could keep Jaune in her life — if it meant she could go back to how they used to be. Pyrrha had been strong in the vault and at the tower, in every way that counted. She could keep being strong.

A crunch of leaves. Georgina. _The end of the world is easy, soldier. Compared to every day that comes after._

"Leave me alone," Pyrrha whispered into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut. "Please."

She felt Georgina's presence leave, as quietly and as calmly as she had arrived. It faded back into the dull static. She was grateful they were listening.

More than just sore, Pyrrha felt thin and frail and _tired_. A ghost of fear still threaded itself into her thoughts; even now, she couldn't shake the sensation of being in a jail cell. She wanted to fall back asleep but dreaded what awaited her in the depths of her subconscious. The Maidens most likely. Or old nightmares, like the ones that had resurfaced in the days leading up to the singles tournament — the same nightmares she used to have at Sanctum — of dying and not recognizing a single face at her own funeral.

The exhaustion and promise of unpredictable dreams had Pyrrha distracted. She didn't immediately notice when Jaune's hand moved under her ministrations. Not until his fingers flexed back, holding her fingertips between his knuckles, nestling her palm over the back of his hand.

She wasn't ready. Not even a little.

Slowly, Pyrrha opened her eyes. Jaune was blinking awake, his irises ringed red from heavy sleep. He yawned and muttered something about his shoulder, made to pull back and straighten up, but abruptly noticed their intertwined hands. Jaune's gaze jumped from her fingers to her face and Pyrrha froze.

Jaune hadn't seen, she realized. Jaune didn't know. He was looking at her like that because she'd kissed him. He still cared for her because he didn't know that the pedestal she'd been on her whole life had become a skyscraper and that she'd killed Cinder Fall with her own hands; he didn't know that she was only a resident of the city that was her own body and that he was so much more than she ever deserved. Jaune thought she was still Pyrrha — just Pyrrha.

She owed him the truth. He was her best friend. Even if, in her heart of hearts, she never wanted him to stop looking at her like that.

In the same exact moment Pyrrha opened her mouth, Jaune pitched forward, sending his chair clattering to the floor. Blindsiding anything Pyrrha was going to say, Jaune dove atop her, shoved both his arms between her body and the mattress, and proceeded to _squeeze_.

It took Pyrrha a few seconds to react. She shifted against her restraints, then made her hands into fists and did a half-crunch that burned her core to tuck her face into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He smelled like sweat and medicine and a hint of Ren's favorite tea that permeated everything in JNPR's dorm when he made it.

She didn't realize she'd started to cry until she searched long and hard for her voice and then couldn't get it out her throat. "I'm sorry."

Jaune nodded into her neck and shuddered. He squeezed her even tighter and Pyrrha didn't care that it made all her muscles hurt, because nothing could've hurt her more than the sound of his voice, breaking.

"Me too."

* * *

James Ironwood rearranged his handwritten stack of papers on Jacque Schnee's borrowed desk. He rubbed his eyes to fight the nausea of going nearly cross-eyed with reading and re-reading.

There was no easy way to do what needed to be done. It was a task the brotherhood had long been able to prevent, and now, it was a task that fell to him to salvage. Twenty years guarding the Maidens made him a dealer of miracles, and they all were in dire need of one now. He'd been consulting the scans of the old texts on his scroll and doing his best to make what he had to do as concise and coherent as possible. He wasn't sure it was working.

Glynda put one hand on his shoulder and held out her other hand for the stack of pages. "Let me check it again."

Ironwood reached for his brandy, passing the pages over his shoulder to Glynda. He took a long drink as the woman behind him slipped the hand from his shoulder and adjusted her glasses.

His shoulder stayed warm. They were very good at pretending, he thought. It had been very conducive to their respective careers and their history.

They lapsed into silence as Glynda shuffled pages and Ironwood shuffled through memories.

"Do you think she thinks of us?" he asked suddenly.

Glynda tensed, the riffle of papers stilling in her hands. She didn't answer.

"I wonder. Sometimes." He tapped his metal finger against the glass of brandy, revelled in the sound.

"Don't," Glynda said, low and sharp. "Don't do this to yourself."

Ironwood got up and crossed the room, drink in hand, to make sure the door was locked. It was the fifth time he'd checked. He'd been doing it to himself far longer than Glynda knew.

"Nikos will be awake any day now," Glynda said tightly. She came over to Ironwood, pushing the freshly clipped packet of sheets against his chest. "We have a job to do." Glynda waited for him to take the papers, then retreated to the desk. "The story is as good as its getting."

The pages felt too light in Ironwood's flesh hand, too light for the weight they really carried.

"Did you ever get to speak to Amber?" he asked the slivers of bark and wool in his hand. The sound of his voice was not as smooth as he would have liked.

"Qrow was her contact," Glynda answered after a moment.

"And you never asked to meet her?"

The ice in Glynda's voice was splintering. "For _what_. James."

"For _something!_ I don't know," he snapped. So much for pretending. Pretending took more energy than he had at the moment, when he knew that the Fall Maiden was somewhere underneath his feet and the fabric of the world that had been the focus of half his life was about to unravel in front of his eyes. "For some shred of proof."

Glynda pulled her riding crop from her belt and motioned. Ironwood's drink flew from his hand and to Glynda's.

"If you want to be emotional," she said coldly, "do it now, in _private_ , and sober. As much as I'd love to give this speech in your place, I have my doubts regarding whether or not your men will listen to me. A job still needs to be done."

"A job I signed up for because of _you_." His green eyes flashed. "And you signed up for _her_."

Glynda put his glass on the desk. Then, thought better of it, and took a drink from it. "Are you done?"

Ironwood lowered his head and huffed. It had been like this for so long, he sometimes forgot what it was like before. In his hands, he unclipped the speech and rearranged it into proper sequence.

"I applaud how well you have your priorities in order," he said.

When he unlocked the door, the sound snapped through the room like frost. Glynda's voice was equally sudden when she spoke.

"You have...no _idea._ What she meant to me," she whispered.

"Of course. You forget, Glynn," he said, stepping out. "My cybernetics half isn't the one with my heart."

* * *

"You know, Weiss was pretty mad when I told her I got invited to a secret meeting and she wasn't."

Qrow snorted. "A Schnee is mad at me? Must be a day of the week."

Ruby grinned. Smiling was easy with Uncle Qrow. Almost too easy, she realized guiltily, considering what the last week had been like.

Early on, in light of all the terrible things that had happened, Ruby had designated herself as Official Bundle of Sunshine. She made the decision on the first night — while Yang was still sedated in her bed, and Weiss was looking for answers, and Blake had been sobbing quietly into her pillow for an hour. Ruby had decided then and there that even if she didn't feel it — and she rarely did these days — she was going to smile and tease and help out anyone who looked like they could use a dumb joke or a laugh at her silly expense. It was all she could do.

Smiling with Uncle Qrow, _really_ smiling, made her feel like a traitor. She bit down on her tongue and rushed a little to keep pace with her uncle. "Sooo what's this about?"

"It's a secret," Qrow said by way of explaining. "Hence, secret meeting."

"You're not going to yell at us some more about finding Pyrrha?" Ruby shrunk in on herself. "Glynda already yelled at us a lot."

"Nah, yelling isn't my department. Besides, I think your blonde friend already learned his lesson pretty well. Never get in the way of a redhead having a bad day." He smirked. "She'll rock your world."

Ruby mock-gasped. "Uncle _Qrow_! Yang would be so proud."

Qrow's mirth turned serious. "How is she today?"

Ruby looked at her feet and slowed a little. Qrow followed suit to keep pace with her. "She's...adjusting. She apologized for yelling at Weiss yesterday. This morning, she let me braid her hair — and she _never_ used to let me do that. Talking with Blake has been helping. Being _locked in the room_ with Blake helps even more. We're all working it out." Ruby looked up at her uncle. "I think she's going to be okay. One day."

Qrow raised a brow. "And you?"

Ruby didn't tell him about her newfound fear of elevators, how she suddenly couldn't stand the sound of metal shoving on metal. She didn't tell him about her nightmares where she activated her Semblance and was a blur of speed and flowers and _not fast enough never fast enough._ She didn't tell him that sometimes she remembered Cinder's body up in the tower, bleeding with that chunk of iron through her heart, and thought of her sister and Penny and _good riddance,_ and then she had to find a stairwell to cry in because she was a terrible person.

Instead, she put on her Official Sunshine Smile, despite not selling it as well as she wished she could. "I think I'm going to be okay, too."

"Good," Qrow said. His half-smile was equally as convincing. When he ruffled her hair, he did it slowly, affectionately. Ruby wondered if her uncle might be seeing right through her. To be fair, explaining away her regularly puffy eyes as an allergic reaction to Atlesian snow probably tipped him off.

They reached the set of doors to the stone hallway. It was guarded by five men now instead of two. They required the hunters to relinquish their scythes, along with any other metal brooches and belts, before allowing Ruby and her uncle to pass through to the stone corridor.

As they approached the room, steps echoing, Ruby could hear Jaune's voice, muffled by the heavy wooden door.

Then — a giggle that turned into a gentle laugh. Pyrrha.

Ruby's heart soared. Pyrrha was awake.

Qrow pushed the door open. Inside, Jaune was sitting in the short chair beside the bed, holding Pyrrha's hand in both of his. He'd taken the back cushion off the armchair and situated it so Pyrrha could sit up. They were looking at each other with red eyes and red faces, but Pyrrha was trying to hold down a shy smile and Jaune looked about as sheepish as he had knocking Ruby over on the first day of combat training. It took them a moment to register the open door and Qrow clearing his throat.

Without waiting for formalities, Ruby rushed in. She was so fast, it was half a wonder a whirlwind of rose petals didn't settle when she threw her arms around Pyrrha recklessly.

Into the hood of her cloak, Pyrrha breathed a small hello. Again.

"You — scared — the _beetlejuice_ out of us," Ruby said when she pulled back. Pyrrha opened her mouth, looking apologetic, but Ruby resolutely held up a finger to shush her. "Your apology for doing so was mailed-in and received ahead of time and has already been accepted."

Pyrrha's lips tipped up at that. The original Official Sunshine Smile. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"You apologize to your boyfriend yet for redecorating the tectonics plates in his brain?" Qrow asked from the door, his attention distracted as he sent a message on his scroll.

Ruby watched the ghost of Pyrrha's smile disappear as she looked to Jaune who hastily adjusted the bandage around his head. "I...did what?"

"It's fine. I'm fine," Jaune said quickly, playing it off. "You didn't hit me any harder than you would've in training."

"What… _When_?"

"A couple days ago," Ruby said, sitting at the foot of Pyrrha's bed on the opposite side of Jaune. Clearly, Pyrrha and Jaune had been talking about things other than recent events. "We put together this big plan to find you and break you out because the adults wouldn't tell us where you were. Jaune tried to get you out of the bed and you…" Ruby mimed an explosion. She nodded. "They told everyone it was an earthquake. Glynda bought our silence by giving us visiting privileges."

Pyrrha looked between her friends, no doubt doing the math. "How...long have I been here?"

"Better part of a week, Mother Nature," Qrow said absently. He was still standing, suspiciously, in the open door to the hallway.

Ruby was confused by Pyrrha's flinch at the nickname. Her friend's gaze unfocused, darting to the corner of the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing sharply, like the name had wounded her.

Ruby put a hand on her arm. Jaune sat up straighter as well. "Pyrrha?"

"It's alright, Ms. Rose," a voice said, echoing in the hallway. Uncle Qrow stepped back and pushed the door open fully.

In a wheelchair, Professor Ozpin rolled into the room. "I'll take it from here."

* * *

Author's Note: With 47 faves and 92 follows, it's like Christmas has come early!

I must have rewritten Pyrrha's awakening scene at least fifteen different times. I reached a point where I was second-guessing my decision to write this story so soon after joining the fandom as I kept doubting all my character choices because they started to feel disingenuous to Pyrrha in canon. Until my best friend pointed out to me that the whole arc of this story IS about deliberately evolving Pyrrha past the point of canon and then I felt better about it. It may sound silly in hindsight, but it's little things you learn when trying out new story types and character arcs.

Anyway. Maybe I take my fanfiction too seriously. But as my best friend likes to remind me, it's all experience points. And speaking of, god bless her for all her editing help, especially since RWBY isn't her fandom. Even if she keeps referring to Pyrrha and Jaune as Jean Grey From 300 and French Yellow Ron Stoppable.

Chapter Title: "trust your heart / if the seas catch fire / (and live by love / though the stars walk backward)" -dive for dreams, e e cummings


	5. the deaf tyranny of fate

Somewhere above the stone hallway, the Vytal Festival hunters and huntresses were escorted from their rooms and gathered in a large auditorium-looking space. They were surrounded on all sides by Atlesian personnel who were, strangely, out of their uniforms. The group of them were in turn guarded within the room by sets of armored soldiers at each set of doors. A microphone and podium had been set up on a small elevated stage at the front.

Sun Wukong, in a true sign of his hunter professionalism, was standing on Scarlet David's shoulders and scanning the room for people he knew. Neptune stood beside him, having opted out of standing stool duty. Behind them, Sage was having the last of his breakfast.

"There! There's half of JNPR and Weiss!" Sun said excitedly, thunking Scarlet on his head before leaping off with enough force to send Scarlet staggering backwards. "Let's go!"

Team SSSN pushed through the mixed crowd of hunters swapping theories and off-duty soldiers wearing variations of grey sweatpants and tank tops. Sage parted the crowd in front of them, quickly enough that Sun repressed the urge to start climbing over people's shoulders. As they neared, Neptune called for Weiss. She glanced up from chatting with Nora, waved them over.

"Where's the rest of your team?" Sun asked immediately. By 'the rest' he meant Blake, and Weiss seemed to gather as much.

"Blake still isn't allowed out of her room after her attempted break-out," Weiss said sourly. "Yang wasn't required because the doctors said a crowd so soon would be too much stress. Ruby got whisked away during chess for a 'secret meeting' with Qrow."

"Jaune's still on...visiting hours," Ren said covertly. Like Sage, he was also finishing the last of his breakfast.

"Anyone got a clue what this is about?" Nora asked, looking up at all the significantly taller people around her.

A ripple spread through the crowd. "I believe we're about to find out," Sage said somberly as Ironwood and Glynda took the stage and a hush settled over the room.

Nora elbowed Scarlet and made grabby hands. He frowned. "What do you think I am?!"

Nora rolled her eyes. "You lifted Sun! And I weigh, like, half of him. Also, my usual height compensation method has three broken ribs." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Ren who held up a hand in acknowledgement.

Scarlet sighed and took a knee so Nora could sit on his shoulders. She rested her cast arm on the top of his head, and he stood again just as Ironwood approached the microphone. Sun climbed Sage to perch on his shoulder with practiced ease, swiping a chunk of cantaloupe from his breakfast plate with his tail.

"I would like to start by apologizing for this rather unorthodox protocol," Ironwood said to the crowd of people in front of him. The shouting accusations, restless shuffling, and poorly channeled anger started immediately. "But the time has come for answers," he said with more steel in his voice. "Answers that I have done my best to curate to satisfy any lingering questions you may have."

He glanced back at Glynda who nodded.

"You, in this room right now, are the first to receive this news. And while I know that free speech dictates that there is nothing any of us can do to keep this a true secret, we only ask that you lend us your ears and open minds for a few minutes as we do our best to try and explain the events that occurred at Beacon last week that have lead us to this."

He took a deep breath. As did everyone in the room.

"From the beginning then," Ironwood started.

* * *

At the sight of Ozpin, Pyrrha felt something in her aura contort, kicking furiously at her heart.

 _No! Ozpin is dead! I killed him!_

Pyrrha stayed motionless, staring at Ozpin as Ruby jumped to her feet. "Professor! You're okay."

Ozpin nodded to her as Qrow shut the door. The headmaster looked to Pyrrha. "Ms. Nikos. How are you feeling?"

Cinder was burning in her mind, warping the edges of her vision. The sheer power of her fury made it hard for Pyrrha to think and realize she was being addressed.

"Yes," she said, several beats too late. "I'm...yes."

Ozpin steepled his hands, resting his elbows on the sides of his electric wheelchair. "Do you know what happened to you?"

"What happened to _you?"_ Jaune blurted, sounding as shocked as Pyrrha felt. He was gripping Pyrrha's hand like he thought Ozpin would take her from him.

There was some mirth in his eyes as Ozpin's gaze shifted from Pyrrha to Jaune. He was missing his teashade glasses and as he turned his head, Pyrrha could see the line of stitches above his ear, the faint tint of pink blood that hadn't been fully washed from his white hair. There were dark bruises along his jugular and the shirt he wore had the unnatural texture of bandages underneath.

"I had a bad day, Mr. Arc," he said simply.

Ruby asked Ozpin something that Pyrrha couldn't hear through the blood pounding in her ears. She was too busy fighting her inexplicable urge to burn through her restraints and strangle the headmaster. She could feel the broiling heat rolling off her body and desperately hoped Jaune wouldn't let go of her. As it stood, she was already struggling not to grip him tight enough to break all the bones in his hand.

"Psst, Mother Nature," Qrow called.

And just like the last time he'd used that name, Amber joined Cinder at the forefront — just as angry, just as distracting.

 _Monster monster monster monster,_ the woman hissed, and it was hard to tell whether Amber meant Cinder or Ozpin or Pyrrha.

Pyrrha realized she had to make another verbal answer. "Yes?"

Qrow walked over and held out his flask to her lips.

It tasted gross, but Pyrrha swallowed the alcohol down. The warmth it brought made it easier to will Amber and Cinder away, back into white noise. For now. Her heat projection stopped, and Pyrrha came back to existing in the room. She centered herself on the feeling of Jaune's hand, the muted ache in her leg, and the protest of too-stiff muscles. The drink helped a little with that last one.

"I'm sorry for meeting you like this, Ms. Nikos," Ozpin said as Qrow took a seat. "But I'm afraid we've lost too much time already. Can you tell me what you remember from the night of the attack?"

Pyrrha thought hard, riffling through lifetimes to pull out memories that she desperately wished weren't hers.

"I killed Penny Poledina," she said.

"That was— you were tricked," Ruby interjected. She dropped back down on the bed beside Pyrrha and gripped the bedsheets, looking Pyrrha in the eye. "We know it wasn't you," she said decisively.

Pyrrha couldn't hold her gaze. She nodded at her toes without really feeling it.

"I killed the dragon," Pyrrha added slowly. Ozpin nodded. "I killed...Cinder Fall."

Something squeezed in her chest as she said it. She searched for her conviction, for the assurance that what she'd done had been right and necessary. But all she found was the memory of Cinder's body spasming against hers and the look in her eyes as the fire left her for good and Cinder's aura, currently within her, spitting embers.

"It was an accident," Jaune said quietly. Pyrrha turned to him, startled, but he fought for a smile. "Ruby saw it. She said she grabbed you and you…" He made a feeble motion of stabbing down. Ruby nodded her confirmation of this story.

The vice tightened around Pyrrha's heart. Ruby hadn't seen Milo. Ruby didn't know she'd meant it.

"The Grimm… Beacon tower…" Pyrrha whispered, unable to look at any of them.

" _None_ of that was your fault, Ms. Nikos," Ozpin interrupted. "And I believe you've already dealt with the person responsible."

Pyrrha rested back further onto the bed and half-heartedly pulled at her restraints. How was she supposed to tell them that Amber was her fault too? That she'd been so desperate to reach Ozpin for the transfer that she'd all but guided Cinder's arrow into the woman's heart. How could she try to explain that — pawn or not — if she hadn't killed Penny, the Grimm would not have come, the tower would not have fallen, and they'd all have been back in their dorms or on the fairgrounds, celebrating the end of the Vytal Festival.

A vision of an auburn forest flickered across her mind's eye again, and Pyrrha screwed her eyes shut, willing away whoever it was that wanted to impart advice or be heard.

"Mr. Arc. Ms. Rose," Ozpin said, looking between both hunters. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have a word alone with Ms. Nikos."

"But you still haven't answered any of our questions," Ruby protested. "Like what happened to Pyrrha. Or how she can fly without Dust. And what Cinder wanted! And—"

"You'll have your answers. As many of them as I can spare." He looked between Jaune and Ruby, something electric in his eyes. "You two are as much a part of this now as anything. But first." Ozpin's attention shifted to Qrow across the room. "Your Uncle Qrow would like to tell you his favorite fairytale."

Qrow met Ozpin's stare flatly. When the headmaster didn't flinch, Qrow rolled his eyes and got up to leave the room, signaling that the others follow.

Jaune didn't budge. "I'm not leaving her alone," he said, and put his other hand on Pyrrha's shoulder.

"I doubt neither your loyalty nor your leadership," Ozpin intoned. He gave Pyrrha a penetrating look. "Ms. Nikos might agree, however, that there are some conversations that function best the fewer people are _listening in."_

Ozpin knew what was happening inside her head, she realized. And he seemed to be in agreement that no one else should.

"It's alright, Jaune," Pyrrha reassured, looking up at him and gripping his hand comfortingly. "I'm sure it'll...only be a few minutes."

Jaune hesitated. Ruby came over and pulled on his sleeve. "We're with the good guys, Jaune."

He frowned slightly, and Pyrrha remembered that all Jaune had seen was a dying girl inside a machine that had caused Pyrrha unbelievable pain. He had reason to doubt.

"Jaune," she said again. "I trust them." It was and wasn't wholly true. Cinder and Amber and Elphaba all had differing opinions on the matter. But _Pyrrha_ trusted Ozpin. Enough to get through the next conversation at least.

With a final glance at all the people involved, Jaune sighed.

"I'll be outside," he said, half-reassurance and half-warning to everyone in the room. His hand slipped from hers — not before giving her one more squeeze — and he walked with Ruby out the door Qrow was holding open, looking back at Pyrrha all the while.

"You're lucky to have them," Ozpin said when the door had closed.

Pyrrha tore her gaze away from the door. Yes. Lucky.

Ozpin didn't speak right away, waiting for Pyrrha to ease back into a comfortable position. Pyrrha wiggled her toes, her fingers, her hips. Just slightly, to fight the stiffness and soreness that suddenly made sense when she considered that she'd been invalid for the better part of the week. Once she had settled, Ozpin turned his wheelchair to face her and waited.

"You didn't mention the others," she said, politely shifting her posture to address him.

"No," Ozpin said. She'd never heard that single-syllable word sound as meticulous as it did coming from Ozpin. "We had reason to believe that Cinder had taken the connection to the past Maidens with her when she drained half of Amber's abilities. The enhanced fighting capabilities and knowledge of electronics she displayed has retroactively confirmed that for me." Ozpin looked down at Pyrrha's restraints. His next words tinted with shame. "Ironwood assured me that when we would initiate the transfer, the only person still left in Amber's aura was Amber herself. We would have never considered it otherwise."

Pyrrha looked straight up at the ceiling. Her body remembered the unbearable pain as the machine pushed into her aura, every blood vessel expanding while every muscle contracted screaming _no room._ She thought she would explode out of her skin.

That had been _one_ aura.

"So it's them," she forced out of her mouth. "They're really...inside me."

"Yes...and no. Having never been a Maiden myself," Ozpin looked the tiniest bit amused at the idea, "I cannot with one-hundred percent certainty explain to you how the magic works. A dear friend once described it to me like an echo chamber. Auras that once shouted into the same room. The echoes persist long after the speaker has left the space."

"Or like a sieve," Pyrrha said to herself. Ozpin raised a brow at that, and Pyrrha looked away, blushing. She chose her next words as carefully as possible. "I believe one of them...tried explaining it to me."

Ozpin leaned back in his wheelchair, wincing with the motion. It was strange to see Ozpin betray an emotion like pain. These were strange times.

"What was her name?"

The push-pull of voices made themselves known. Trust Ozpin. Don't trust Ozpin. With a little more will, Pyrrha hushed the Maidens enough to think. Then, experimentally, she attempted to reach for a certain voice.

A shuffle of leaves on withered grass. _If you trust him,_ the voice murmured, _so do I._

"Alexandria," she said. Whispering the set of syllables felt like betraying some primal law of nature. "Her name is... _was_...Alexandria."

Ozpin thought for a long moment before speaking. "Alexandria Kemet. Faunus," he recited, as if they were in a lecture at Beacon. "Panthera, if memory serves." Ozpin looked at Pyrrha through his eyelashes. "She once ruled the whole continent of Menagerie. Single handedly, no less."

The ghost echo of Alexandria in Pyrrha's mind suddenly became sharper, defined in hard burning edges. Pyrrha could see her features now, the tail and fangs and claws — more animalistic than a modern faunus. Her blue eyes glowed bright and slitted in her dark face. Memories filled the outline — slaves, wars, lovers and politics, and the back-breaking call of _duty_ and _responsibility —_ and for the first time, Pyrrha felt a Maiden resisting the urge to speak.

Pyrrha swallowed the intensity down, rightly guessing that less than a second had passed for Ozpin while something of an entire life had flashed behind her eyes.

"Why her?" Pyrrha decided to ask.

Ozpin sighed. "I don't truly have an answer for you, Ms. Nikos. For all our brotherhood has done for centuries, there is still little we understand about the magic that makes your existence possible." Ozpin searched in the corner of the room for some kind of answer. "If my good friend was to be believed, however, she suspected that it had something to do with yourself. Whatever remains of the Maidens, whatever ties them to the magic, wants to preserve the lineage. Naturally, that's by preserving _you_ , whether it be through self defense or self indulgence. She felt that the Maidens who reached out most often to her echoed the strongest attributes of herself. Her humility. Her openness with people. Those sorts of things." He looked back at Pyrrha, his expression carefully neutral. "Does that sound right?"

Pyrrha thought of Elphaba and the others that had made themselves known during the fight, who had kept coming back to her when so many of the others had only spoken up in chorus or not at all, watching from the recesses. She thought of Faith's brilliant encouragement as she fought. She thought of Georgina's confidence in the face of danger and death and dragons. The whispers of Alexandria still blazed to do what was necessary for the people she protected, to fill the void of what fortune and favor had denied those she loved.

"It's close enough, professor," she admitted.

From the hallway, Ruby made a noise of indignation. Pyrrha glanced at the door, and Ozpin turned in his chair as Jaune hissed something to Ruby about being too loud.

"Does...anyone else know? About this part," she asked.

Ozpin acknowledged the verbal question, and the unspoken one, with a nod. "Only the brotherhood. We didn't learn about it until very recently. I believe it is best to keep it that way." Ozpin leaned forward on his elbows once more, closer and closer still. "Though it is something many of us take for granted, Ms. Nikos, sanity is a rather sacred thing. Once you lose that faith from others, that belief that you are right and well of mind, you become powerless in a way. There is no getting it back."

Pyrrha looked back up at the ceiling, away from the sound of Jaune's voice. She nodded numbly. "Thank you for your clarifications."

His posture didn't relax, nor give any indication that her thanks meant the end of the conversation. "Do you have any other questions for me? Regarding this or...the rest of it?"

The rest of it made more sense to Pyrrha than breathing. Her Semblance was still hers, but her reach and power were augmented astronomically. She didn't dare test it, but Pyrrha could have sworn she felt the iron in Ozpin's blood where it concentrated in his atriums. The whole time they had been talking, she had felt the presence of his metal wheelchair beside her like a white elephant, even grateful for the restraints that held her down, unsure if she could remain still enough on her own not to affect it. The fire and flight came with the magic, along with other elemental powers, and her ability to wield them was as secondary as her ability to wield chopsticks.

There _was_ something new though. A hunger. Inside her. Different than her hunger for food, or the hunger that sometimes flared low in her stomach when she thought of Jaune. More primal. A compulsion to burn away the dying, to ease...pain. A longing _need_ to sweep low and dangerously fast through each crevice of rock and every scar of bark, to peel away the rotted skin of the earth and sink her teeth into fresh raw pink before ice came to freeze it through. An appetite for cataclysm.

Ozpin watched Pyrrha's reaction carefully. Pyrrha couldn't tell if this was something he knew about, but it scared her. So she kept it inside, like most of the things she feared.

"No," she said after a long minute. "No, there's nothing else. Thank you, again."

But Ozpin didn't make to leave. His hands steepled once more, pressed hard against his lips. He shut his eyes. Pyrrha could feel something brush against her aura; she didn't immediately realize it was Ozpin's own aura, projecting _guilt_ so strongly that Pyrrha actually felt it, like mud on her bare skin.

"Pyrrha. I have...something to ask of you. Something I have no right to ask."

The overhead light flickered once, and Pyrrha wasn't sure which of them did it.

Ozpin opened his eyes. "I need to speak to Cinder Fall."

All her uncertainty, all the pain in her body and her aura, dissipated, leaving only the burning, buckling anger of a dead woman in her heart. And fear. Pyrrha's fear.

"Professor?"

"I am so sorry," he whispered, his gaze unwavering. "But we've already lost too much time." He suddenly looked like an old man. "We've already lost too much."

Pyrrha had to look away. She breathed through her nose and dug her nails into her palms hard enough to hurt, but not enough for Ozpin to notice. She had always been taught that the task of a true warrior was to stand by your decisions. You chose this, she reminded herself. You chose _this._

Carefully, Pyrrha let Cinder's wildfire spread through her body. And as Cinder pushed forward, so did her memories — blood on her hands and in her hair, glass cold and unfeeling under her fingernails. Through the plotting and planning, Pyrrha saw herself through Cinder's eyes, in the Vytal Festival, facing down an artificial nightmare and a tiny tin girl. Pyrrha saw all that and more, all the awful things Cinder had done in her own name and...in the name of a pale woman with Grimm eyes.

"Cinder was merely the cog in the bigger machine," Ozpin was saying, powering through the words, though it was clear he wished he didn't have to speak them. "If we want to keep her chess-masters from hurting anyone else... If there's any chance—"

"Professor."

Pyrrha turned her head fully, so Ozpin could see the fire and gold in her eyes good and well. "Tell me what I need to do."

* * *

Jaune had heard the story of the Four Maidens a million times growing up. He knew it with each of his sisters' favorite variations — what did Spring plant in the wizard's garden, what did Winter say first — and had read it in his mother's book of nursery rhymes as much as he'd read the tale of the Girl in the Tower or the tale of the Wolf at the Door.

The version that Qrow just finished telling them, the one that starred Pyrrha and featured the real world that he lived in as a backdrop, was probably his least favorite variation.

He took a few steps back until his shoulders pushed against stone wall, then let himself slide down to the floor. "I'm...going to need a minute. Or a month."

For her part, Ruby had taken the reveal of magic in their world remarkably well. She nodded sagely, like she'd anticipated this answer for some time. Good for her. Jaune was trying not to hyperventilate.

"So are _all_ fairy tales real then, Uncle Qrow?" she asked.

Qrow held up a hand. "That's above my pay grade. I only got roped into _this_ fairy tale."

Jaune's chest felt too tight. His hand reached to adjust the chest plates of his armor before he remembered that he'd chucked those off back in Vale.

"When they said she flew… I just thought she was lifting herself by her armor," he said quietly. "We'd— She'd mentioned to me that she...wanted to learn how to do that."

Qrow looked amused at Jaune's expense. "What did you think happened when she shook the whole building like a dog with a chew toy?"

"I...I don't know! Polarity? We all thought it was polarity, right?" He looked desperately to Ruby. She nodded very seriously.

"And when she threw you into a wall?" Qrow asked, pulling out his flask. "Without a scrap of metal on you?"

Jaune moaned. "I've had two concussions in ten days. Cut me some slack." He brought a knee to his chest and propped his chin against it. "Any chance I can have some of that?"

Qrow took a swig from his flask and put it away. "Ask again when you've got some hair on your chest."

Ruby coughed to cover a laugh. "So," she said, back to serious business, "what happens now?"

 _"Now,_ " Qrow hummed, content with his alcohol, "Ironheart and Goodwitch put their big brains together and do as much damage control as they can. Oz and I will probably go after the bad guys — _alone,"_ he enunciated when Ruby started to protest, "and you two," he said pointedly, a clarity sneaking in behind his red irises, "get to practice spending the rest of your lives lying to your respective family and friends about all of this."

"What?! We can't tell anyone?" Ruby asked, looking justifiably upset.

Jaune shushed her, and probably louder than he should've, hissed, "Not so loud. That door's hardly soundproof."

"Not a soul," Qrow confirmed in a low voice. "You've always wanted to be part of a secret society, squirt? Congrats, consider yourself officially inducted."

"But...not even Yang?" Ruby pleaded. "And...and Weiss? And Blake?"

"No one. Odds are, a good chunk of the people that get the bogus story will go looking for answers anyway and this is going to spread. We need all hands on deck to contain—"

Qrow stopped, seeing the pain in Ruby's eyes.

He sighed. "Look, you can still talk to me or Goodwitch or even Ironheart if you feel the need. You can even talk to...him," he paused, looking Jaune over, face contorted in thought. "I don't think I ever caught your name."

Jaune lifted his head from his knees, stomach turning over as if he was back on an airship. He did his best to look serious and not like he was about to cry or throw up. "What happens to Pyrrha?"

Ruby's uncle hesitated.

"...Uncle Qrow?" Ruby said. "What's going to happen to Pyrrha?"

With a swear, Qrow scrubbed a hand over his face. "I guess you kids'll have enough people lying to you," he said finally. "Pyrrha Nikos is gonna need to be isolated."

Jaune's stomach lurched. His vision tunnelled.

"You...you can't," Ruby stammered. "You can't take her away!"

"We have to, kiddo," Qrow explained. "For her protection, and the safety of people around her."

"But Pyrrha's never hurt anyone on purpose," Ruby insisted. "We're her friends! Jaune, _tell_ him."

Jaune stared at them both, struggling to find words for what needed explaining.

In the past, Team JNPR rarely spoke about their lives before Beacon. Ren commented once how he didn't like that Yang threw around the word 'starvation' so casually. Nora mentioned her parents in past tense and always in the middle of an unrelated conversation. Jaune shared his family's disappointment willingly enough, but it was so often overshadowed by his teammates' reminders that he had a family with them, that Jaune stopped bringing it up. Pyrrha never talked about her family, or Sanctum, or any childhood friends. Jaune never thought to ask — until the night of the dance. When she'd arrived late and stunningly alone, Jaune came to realize in one conversation that the Pyrrha who'd become his closest friend and partner hadn't _existed_ until she'd arrived at Beacon. And since waking up from the non-nightmare that was Beacon burning, Jaune saw Pyrrha with sedulous clarity.

Jaune got to his feet and squared his shoulders before Qrow in a desperate attempt to mask how frantically his mind was racing, how violated he felt at the very thought of losing Pyrrha. Qrow needed to understand.

"Sir, Beacon is all she has," Jaune said. "All she's ever wanted is the chance to be like anyone else. You take her away from us... If you lock her away — without a chance to be anything but this Fall Maiden — you'll kill her."

Qrow contemplated this for a moment, sizing Jaune up. "I've seen that girl fight. She'll be fine."

"She'll _tell_ you she's fine," Jaune insisted, light-headed with how tightly he was reigning in his distress, "because she's _Pyrrha_ and she can't say no to responsibility, but I know her. You isolate her and she'll—"

"What if we do it?" Ruby interrupted, stepping up to her uncle. "What if we protect her? JNPR and RWBY?"

Qrow frowned down at his niece. "Kiddo, I already told you. Secret society rules."

"They don't have to know the big magic secret," Ruby said. "They just...have to protect Pyrrha. Right? If they do that… If we do that, all together, all seven of us — she could stay?"

"That's Oz's call," Qrow said after a beat. "There are a _lot_ of people who are going to want your friend six feet under."

Ruby's eyes shone bright in the dim hallway. "Then we can help! If we can't go after the bad guys that did all this—" The silver in her eyes turned to steel. "—then let us stop the bad guys that come to _us_."

Ruby's resolve was pervasive. Jaune's hands turned to fists.

"We couldn't protect Beacon," he said. "Or Penny or the girl in the vault. But we can still defend Pyrrha."

Miracle of miracles, Qrow seemed to actually hear what they were saying. He looked between the two of them and sighed.

"There's a lot more at stake here than just your friend. _But_." He put a hand on Ruby and looked over at Jaune when it was clear both of them wanted to keep arguing. "I promise, I will voice your...notes."

No one expected the shock of a crash from within the room.

The three of them were at the wooden door in an instant. Qrow shoved against it with all his weight. It didn't budge. Ruby and Jaune swapped a wordless coordination — weeks of sitting next to each other in team leadership class paying off — and Ruby shot off, a bullet of flora, towards the guards holding their weapons. Jaune backed up to kick the door in, but almost tripped into it face-first when Qrow grabbed him by his hood.

"Ozpin?" Qrow asked cautiously.

"It's alright," Ozpin called back, sounding winded. "We're all well in here. Aren't we, Ms. Nikos?"

There was a long beat of silence. Then the door finally gave way under Qrow's push. Jaune ducked under his arm to get in the room first and found that Ozpin's wheelchair had been shoved against the door. The armchair was flipped upside down in the corner. Paper sheets and paper cranes drifted softly to the ground in flames. The clay pot in the corner of the bed had shattered, leaving shards of pottery and water and rose petals scattered about, putting out the fire when the two elements met.

In bed, Pyrrha's hands were freed, her plastic restraints melted and warped through. The fancy contraption elevating her leg had bent in half. She was hugging her arms tightly, staring at the far wall.

Jaune all but vaulted over Ozpin to reach her. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched out of his reach without looking at him. Worried, he sat beside her. Pyrrha shifted away from his dip in the mattress.

"Pyrrha?"

"Fine," she whispered. "Everything's fine."

Qrow turned to Ozpin. "Did you…?"

The headmaster nodded to Qrow. "Let James and Glynda know she's up."

Qrow shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped out of the room.

"What happened?" Jaune demanded.

"A small power surge," Ozpin said patiently. "All to be expected as she adjusts."

" _Expected?_ " Jaune repeated, aghast, but Pyrrha's shuddering gasp of a breath interrupted him.

"Is there...anything else you need? Professor?" she asked.

"No, Ms. Nikos," Ozpin said gently. "You have done more than enough. Get some rest."

Pyrrha swallowed hard and nodded. She shut her eyes one eyelash at a time.

Jaune looked between both of them, and an acidic _anger_ flared in his chest, unlike anything he'd felt before. Ozpin was not going to take her away, he decided, because Jaune wasn't going to let the man go _near_ her.

Before Jaune could find the words or will to channel his new conviction, Ruby returned to the doorframe in a flurry of petals, Crescent Rose and Crocea Mors in hand. She picked up on the tension immediately.

"...I saw Uncle Qrow in the hall," Ruby said to the room. It wasn't a question or statement, just words that came out of her mouth.

Ozpin glanced at the three of them.

"Whatever happens next," the headmaster said carefully, "nothing you've seen or heard leaves this room. If destiny was kind, she'd go by a different name."

Pyrrha held herself tighter, curled inwards so that her now shoulder-length hair curtained her face. Jaune reached out automatically to brush it behind her ear, hovered, then let his hand settle back on the bed.

"I'll be at the end of the hall," Ozpin said. "When you are both ready with your questions."

"What are you gonna do, Professor?" Ruby asked as Ozpin wheeled towards the door, his eyes downcast.

"Oh, I don't know, Ms. Rose," he said and smiled thinly as he left. "Whatever it is dead men do."

* * *

Author's Note: Up to 58 faves and 109 follows! All 100+ of you who I know are reading from the shadowy recesses of the internet, don't think I've forgotten about you. If you've been enjoying, don't hesitate to drop a review. I always respond, and I might even answer with a short preview of next chapter, since it is the holiday season after all ;)

A super special shout out to **parazesis** whose review was a wonderfully unexpected Christmas gift and had me glowing all day.

Anyways, this was supposed to be part of last chapter but then Ozpin and Pyrrha talked for like 3,000 words and I couldn't bear to interrupt them.

I'd like to know people's thoughts on the poem/song snippets and their inclusion in the chapter titles. In my experience, nothing expresses loneliness quite like poetry and punk rock. I try to comb over them pretty thoroughly so that the title, excerpt, and whole poem serve the intention/feel of the chapter they're used in. Do they help with the feel and mood of the chapter?

Chapter Title: "And the deaf tyranny of Fate, / The ruling principle of Hate, / Which for its pleasure doth create / The things it may annihilate..." -Prometheus, Lord Byron


	6. gather me for the autumn fires

When Pyrrha agreed to let Ozpin speak with Cinder, the woman's aura _reached_ for her. Pyrrha felt the grip at the base of her skull, felt it pull inwards — and then found herself back in the auburn forest, surrounded by millenniums of women whispering miracles. Some Maidens smiled or nodded; some wrung their hands; others looked disappointed. A few didn't look at Pyrrha at all, instead watching the thrashing trees around them with the intensity of predators. Pyrrha hugged her arms to stave off a chill and abruptly realized her wrists were no longer pinned to her sides. The following instant, she realized what was happening. Hundreds of familiar faces surrounded Pyrrha. But no Cinder Fall.

A strong wind rattled the overhead branches, revealing more of the bright lights behind them. Pyrrha reached for the light and split open the sky, returning to the helm of her body. Only to find the room in flames, Ozpin at her mercy, and her muscles burning with magic.

Pyrrha forced Cinder back _down_ — Cinder who was nothing but rage now, sheer and barbarous. Her head spun with the effort, her vision swam, and even once it was done, a dissociation of self lingered. For a small eternity, Cinder's hatred looked a lot like Pyrrha's own. And Pyrrha had been keeping that caged for so long, she'd forgotten it was something she could feel at all.

The hours that followed were disorienting. Things kept happening in the world around her. Pyrrha felt Jaune, Ruby, and Qrow's auras return, spots of light beyond the haze in her vision. They spoke to each other and to her, though she couldn't remember what she said or when Qrow and Ozpin left. Jaune and Ruby stayed with her a while longer, discussing their options and the new world order in whole arguments that Pyrrha missed entirely, before Ruby left to go question Ozpin. Pyrrha heard herself tell Jaune to go with Ruby, insisting when Jaune protested. He asked if she needed anything else from him; she lied and said no. He left too.

In the solitude that followed, the Maidens reverberated through Pyrrha like the low note on a violin. Some, like Georgina and Faith, tried to tell her she had done well, that she had been brave to surrender herself for the sake of stopping a greater evil. Others, like Alexandria and Elphaba, disagreed, and had always disagreed, that their times had passed and using Pyrrha's body like a worn coat was a dangerous strain on the magic that wove them all together.

Cinder wasn't allowed an opinion. The other auras deliberately buried her.

Pyrrha listened to their discourse and stared at a split stone block on the ceiling. She rubbed her chafed wrists and cold arms and stared at the ceiling until twenty minutes or twenty hours passed.

At some point, a lone nurse came in to take her vitals and look at her leg. Without prompting, the man explained that the metal of Pyrrha's greaves had been molded into a half-inch plate and cauterized to the skin of her calf and ankle. They couldn't remove it without risking further damage, but her aura was steadily healing her shredded muscle and partially torn tendon. Pyrrha might walk with a limp, he said, but she would walk. She thanked him and the man left.

Time passed again, and the next thing Pyrrha was aware of, Ren was pressing a mug of chai tea into her hands. She looked into the mug, then pulled her gaze up to her teammate. Ren searched her face for something he wasn't finding. Nora appeared on the other side of her bed with a look of concern.

Pyrrha realized they were waiting for a reaction. She put on a smile and did her best to make it reach her eyes.

Nora broke into a grin. One of her smiles that determined nothing could be wrong in the world merely because she willed it. She wrapped Pyrrha in a one-armed hug as Ren asked if she needed honey for her tea. Pyrrha shook her head and eyed the door where Weiss stood, arguing with Sun and Neptune because _they weren't invited._ Ruby walked in a moment later with Jaune and half a dozen plastic chairs. It finally occurred to Pyrrha to ask what was going on.

"A debrief," Nora said simply, linking her arm through Pyrrha's and settling on that half of the bed. "We were promised answers."

"Oh," Pyrrha heard herself say. It was good they were getting answers. The low buzz in Pyrrha's mind held the answers to any questions she could have. Except, perhaps, how she was supposed to live with herself like this.

Sun and Neptune seemed to have won their argument with Weiss because they sauntered into the room a minute later, asking Pyrrha how she felt and if she liked their paper cranes. Pyrrha straightened up for her audience and said yes, she'd found them lovely. Jaune set down the last chair and fielded their next few questions about Pyrrha's health and what kind of natural disaster had wrecked the room.

As her friends talked amongst themselves and the Maidens deliberated in her head, Pyrrha sipped her tea. She both hoped and feared that they would all leave her alone if she asked them to.

Pyrrha had no way to tell how long she spent giving practiced answers, trapped between a room full of visitors and a forest full of ghosts. Eventually, the door opened and Glynda, Qrow, and Ironwood stepped into the room.

"Good evening," Glynda said formally, her eyes sweeping once over them all. "Get comfortable. I'd like to get through this as quickly as possible."

Ruby, Weiss, Sun, and Neptune settled into the plastic chairs around the room. Nora stayed arm-in-arm with Pyrrha. Ren righted the overturned armchair and sat next to his partner. On Pyrrha's other side, Jaune repositioned his chair from before and rested his hand on the mattress beside her, easily within reach if Pyrrha needed it.

They waited as Glynda shut and locked the door behind her with a flick of her riding crop. Qrow leaned against the wall and Ironwood stepped into the center of the room.

"By now, most of you have heard the official story of why you were detained," General Ironwood said. "Ms. Nikos was a test subject in an experimental procedure that granted her a second Semblance. My associates and I feared widespread panic and misinformation if news of this were to spread unchecked, but needed to secure Beacon and Vale as our first priority following the events of the White Fang and their terrorist accomplices attacking the Vytal Festival."

Those present at the assembly nodded warily.

"As the defenders of Beacon and Ms. Nikos' friends, however, your associate headmaster and I felt it was only fair you should be privy to the truth." He looked each of them in the face — except Pyrrha — and held a little longer on Jaune and Ruby.

Ironwood folded his hands behind his back and began. "Roughly six months ago, Ms. Nikos was hand-picked by Headmaster Ozpin and myself from a pool of potential Beacon candidates to undergo an experimental aura-transfer procedure, the first of its kind. She was chosen for her strength of body, mind, and character. It was my hope, and Ozpin's, that such a procedure would eventually be used to heal damaged auras and save lives when the physical body is too ruined. Ms. Nikos had been undergoing steady treatments in preparedness for this experiment for many weeks prior to the Vytal festival.

"Regrettably, news of this research escaped our veil of secrecy. Our project came to the attention of individuals who we believe aimed to use this technology to create invincible hunters and huntresses with multiple Semblances. They attempted to duplicate the procedure, and partially succeeded with a woman you all knew as Cinder Fall."

 _Liar,_ Cinder seethed inside. _Liar._

"She, along with her fellow saboteurs in the White Fang, infiltrated the Vytal Festival, provoking mass hysteria by hacking the CCT and manipulating the outcomes of several Singles Tournament match-ups."

Ruby's hands balled into fists as Pyrrha set her jaw.

Ironwood bowed his head. "The mass panic forced our hand. In our pride and haste, Ozpin and I unwisely advised Ms. Nikos that the best way to protect the experiment would be to see it through to completion. She returned to our laboratory at the base of Beacon Tower and underwent the transfer of aura under Ozpin's supervision, while I manned the armed forces during the assault. Upon completion of the experiment, Pyrrha Nikos successfully received and incorporated the aura of a volunteer comatose patient — along with her Semblance of elemental manipulation."

Amber's aura had been a distracting glimmer in the corner of Pyrrha's mind since the moment Qrow walked into the room. Now it flared. _Say my name. Say my name, you cowards._

"This, Mr. Arc was privy to," Ironwood said abruptly, turning to Jaune who startled at the mention of his name. "He followed after Ms. Nikos and witnessed a portion of the process."

Attention turned to Jaune who, rather convincingly, scratched the back of head and said, "Oh, wow. Yeah, that makes sense, I didn't know _what_ that was."

Satisfied, Ironwood continued, eyes downcast. "In my last communication with Ozpin, he informed me that Cinder Fall had followed him, Ms. Nikos, and Mr. Arc to the laboratory under the school. Per Ms. Nikos, she and Mr. Arc fled at Ozpin's command while he stayed to engage the perpetrator. Cinder escaped to the top of Beacon Tower, but it is our understanding that when it collapsed, the underground labs caved in. Nothing and no one made it out alive. Not the research nor the patient...nor Ozpin."

He paused for the required silence as the others let that sink in. Ruby and Jaune bowed their heads, and Pyrrha followed their lead. She owed it to Ozpin and his brotherhood to sell this 'reveal'. This was acting. She knew acting very well.

"As Mr. Arc was sent for help," Ironwood went on after a minute, "Ms. Nikos engaged Cinder Fall atop Beacon Tower. She bested Cinder in combat, and had no choice but to act in self-defense when the defeated woman attempted a final, fatal strike."

Pyrrha flinched.

"Ms. Rose arrived in time to witness," Ironwood said, and Ruby nodded for everyone present. "Ms. Nikos then eliminated the dragon and followed my instructions to rendezvous with the last remaining ship once her task was complete. Upon arrival, she collapsed from the strain and was put into a medically induced coma to stabilize her Semblance. It was my hope that this would allow time for her physical body to adjust to the dual auras and successfully incorporate one into the other." He nodded decisively. "Which it seems it has."

No one said anything for a long moment, then Nora spoke up. "You told us you didn't know what it was."

The three adults turned to her. "Ms. Valkyrie?"

She nudged Ren with her foot, looking warily at the General. "In the ship, when Ren and I were heading out. You said you didn't know what killed the dragon."

Ironwood shifted his shoulders to address her languidly. "I rightly feared the transfer of aura might have made Ms. Nikos slightly...unstable," he explained. "I wished to mount a defensive privately, with my own military, so as to intercept her before she engaged with anyone else." His eyes narrowed on Nora. "Unfortunately, hunters and huntresses do appreciate any chance to prove their stubbornness."

"And only...you and Ozpin knew about this?" Weiss asked, watching Jaune out of the corner of her eye.

"Qrow and I were brought on after the fact," Glyda said carefully.

"We all on the same page?" Qrow asked, testing the remaining silence of the room.

Sun crossed his arms; his eyes narrowed. "So we're just supposed to take your word that this is how it all went down? You actually expect us to just believe this?"

"Yes," Ironwood answered, his tone thinned down to the edge of a knife. "I do. Because if you want your life to return to any remote _semblance_ of normality — if you don't wish to bring down all manner of hell on your kingdom and your friend — then this is the truth and you will _defend it_ to your last breath."

Sun opened his mouth — and shut his mouth when Neptune elbowed him.

"What happens if we don't want to?" Weiss asked cautiously, her scarred brow raised in challenge.

Glynda accepted her volley. "If you cannot or will not keep this secret, then we will have to keep it for you," she said severely.

"What's _that_ supposed to—"

Ruby put a hand on her teammate, pleading. "Weiss. They'll take Pyrrha away."

Pyrrha stared at the adults. "Wait. You're not...taking me away?" she asked.

They exchanged a look. Qrow raised a brow. "Do you _want_ to be taken away?"

Just as they had when Pyrrha had slain the dragon, the Maidens' opinion was unanimous: _yes_. Isolation was safer, solitude was ideal. The feeling surged through all her senses; Pyrrha could scarcely think around it. She struggled to find herself in the lights and sounds, to decipher the difference between what she wanted and what was the right thing to do.

The room watched her, attention undivided. She looked into the faces of her friends — the worried eyes, the suspicious looks, the silent pleading — and felt the uneasy current that swept through them all. They'd all expected her answer to be definite, without hesitation. She ran her tongue over her teeth, searching for words amidst the eyes upon her.

"No," she said finally.

Ironwood cleared his throat. "Then you will return to Beacon as soon as it reopens, under Goodwitch's protection, and resume your studies with some of the best and brightest up-and-coming hunters watching your back." He nodded respectfully to everyone in the room.

"As it stands," Glynda said, "we are all on our way to...a new normal, let's call it. You can either all work together to achieve this, or walk away from the matter entirely."

"Walk away...how?" Sun hedged.

"By putting one foot in front of the other, Mr. Wukong," Glynda answered, gesturing to the door.

Sun shifted in place and Neptune rubbed the back of his neck. Ruby and Weiss traded a pleading look. Jaune nudged his hand a little closer to Pyrrha. No one made a move to go.

"Good," Ironwood said. "Anything outstanding?"

After a pregnant pause, Ren asked. "What will happen to you?"

Ironwood let out a bitter laugh. "Ozpin taught you well. As of this evening, I am resigning as headmaster of Atlas Academy and general of the Atlesian military. Winter Schnee will be named my replacement."

Pyrrha's heart stuttered. She couldn't live with a lie made to protect her costing Ironwood his livelihood. Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, but Jaune's hand was over hers immediately, squeezing tight enough to hurt. When she caught his frantic eye, he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"So that's it," Weiss said tightly. "Winter takes over Atlas command and we get no more answers."

"Again," Qrow said. "Door's right here."

Again, no one moved. Jaune's grip shifted to take Pyrrha's hand. She didn't have the wherewithal to hold his hand in return.

Glynda pulled out her scroll and looked over a static page of notes. "The Atlesian military has all but swept the city and the school clear of Grimm. The quarantine will be lifted tomorrow at noon, and I return in a few days to head the rebuilding efforts. Anyone who wishes to join the initial reconstruction phase is welcome to accompany me. Otherwise, we have been cleared to let anyone who wants to stay keep their room here until Beacon is further recovered."

"Professor Goodwitch...?" Nora started.

" _Headmaster._ Goodwitch," she corrected, and Nora shut her mouth, question answered.

News delivered, Glynda closed her scroll and unlocked the door. Qrow edged out of the room with a nod at Ruby and Jaune. Then the former General Ironwood took stock of the eight students gathered.

"Prepare accordingly," he said, and exited without a backwards glance.

* * *

Ozpin sat in another room in the stone corridor on the far end of the entrance, sipping coffee and waiting. This one had also been converted from a prison cell but was built more like an office than a bedroom. He glanced at his watch just as the others entered and set his mug down.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well," Glynda answered sarcastically. She removed her glasses to rub her eyes as Ironwood re-centered his breath.

"It's done," the general said. "We've given them everything we can."

"Thank you both," Ozpin said, looking between Glynda and Ironwood. "I know that couldn't have been easy."

Glynda sighed harshly. "I say we should have simply isolated her as per protocol."

"Nothing about Nikos falls under protocol," Ozpin said.

"I still don't like it. No other Maiden has been allowed to stay with the population."

"No other _recent_ Maiden," Ozpin corrected. "And no Maiden in history has ever chosen her power in the way Ms. Nikos has. She has taken up her duty selflessly and followed our instructions without question. If we did not let her choose what happened next...we are no more human that Grimm."

"She stays and it just might save _all_ their lives," Qrow said. He turned to Ozpin and Glynda's curious looks. "You didn't see what I saw in Ruby's eyes earlier. Looking after the Maiden will give them something to do. So they don't throw themselves out into the world looking for revenge."

"Some of them still might," Glynda cautioned, looking Qrow over. "Even if tasking them with Ms. Nikos makes them feel like they are contributing to the fight."

"They _will_ be contributing to the fight," Ozpin corrected. His hands steepled once more, his posture taught. "Without a doubt, Salem will try for the Fall Maiden's power again. As will others, if the news spreads."

Ironwood blinked at him, appalled. "You're not suggesting we use her as bait for our enemies."

"I am pointing out an inevitability of our new world order," Ozpin said, syllable by syllable. "We can no longer protect them any more than they can protect us."

Silence settled like ash.

"So she stays," Glynda said slowly, "and _they_ choose to stay with _her_. How long do you think it will last? A year? Ten years? Then what?"

"How long have _we_ lasted?" Ironwood answered, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

Glynda stared him down. "They're children, James. We didn't choose this at seventeen."

"They will last long enough, Glynda," Ozpin said. He rolled his chair over to a table in the corner of the room. "We are spread thin as it is. If she returns to Beacon under your protection and the watchful eyes of her companions, it allows us more flexibility in pursuing...other objectives." He indicated a map on the table. A black pentagram marked a spot in uncharted Remnant territory. "We all have our parts to play now."

The four brotherhood members stared at the mark, the end goal plainly before them.

"We shoulda told them the truth," Qrow said finally. "They oughta know what they're dealing with."

"Ruby and Jaune know the truth," Ozpin answered. "Any more than that, and we'd risk a secrecy breach. The others will have to trust."

Glynda let out a hollow laugh. "Yes. Because teenagers are well known for _that_."

* * *

As soon as the adults left, Sun turned to Pyrrha. "Is that what happened?"

Pyrrha raised her head as both Jaune and Ruby startled. Nora shot Sun a nasty look; Ren and Weiss raised a brow.

"Dude, c'mon," Neptune mumbled under his breath.

Sun realized the question might have come out a little too harsh and held up his hands in surrender. "Look, I have no problem sticking my neck out for this, I just want to hear it from her," he said a little more firmly. He tried to get Pyrrha to look at him but she bowed her head again. "Pyrrha? Hey, is that how it really went down?"

Pyrrha nodded against her chest.

"You're sure?" Sun asked.

"She just said it was." Neptune's brow furrowed. "Leave it alone, Sun."

Sun looked at all of them in the room, annoyance rising. "You seriously don't believe this bullshit story. Right? About secret lab experiments and government cover-ups—"

"Sun," Neptune said a little more sternly. "Let it go."

"If that was the truth, they totally wouldn't have told us!" Sun argued back.

Ruby was fidgeting. "They would've!" she insisted. "Why would they lie?"

"Why do adult _ever_ lie?" he said, exasperatedly.

Sun wasn't sure when it happened, but Ren was standing now, and standing close.

"They said you didn't have to believe it," Ren intoned. "If you want to look for your own answers, you may do it on your own."

Sun gaped. " _You_ believe this?"

"Will it keep my team together?" Ren challenged. "Then yes, I believe it."

"If you don't want to," Nora said with a bit of bite, "then you can do it somewhere else."

Sun met the hard looks of half of Team JNPR with incredulity. Jaune still looked uneasy, but he was keeping his eyes on Pyrrha and stroking the back of her hand. Sun's tail flicked in agitation but he forced himself to calm down before he met the business end of a hammer or pistol.

"Look, I get wanting to stick with your team," he said carefully. "Goodness knows I've done ludicrous things to save Scarlet's ass. But this isn't _just_ about her. Penny's dead. Yang's never going to be the same. Blake almost died! _We_ — " he indicated everyone in the room with a frantic sweep of his arms, " — _almost died._ " His arms dropped to his side, defeated. "For a science fair project? For a story with enough holes in it I could call it the moon?"

Sun caught Pyrrha's eye through the short veil of her hair. And in the evergreen glow of her irises, Sun saw something he couldn't name. Something that brushed against his animal instinct and told every muscle in his body to _run_. But when she lifted her head, there was only resolve.

"I understand, Sun," Pyrrha said. "I'm sorry. But I understand."

Jaune's hand curled more tightly around Pyrrha's. Ren sat back down beside her, a hand on her knee. Nora rubbed Pyrrha's back. No one would look at Sun.

"Okay, I'm sorry, but he's right," Weiss spoke up. "They really expect us to just stick our heads in the sand about this?"

"Weiss," Ruby pleaded, following suit as her teammate stood from her chair. "They're not— No one is sticking their heads in the sand. They told us what happened."

Weiss offered Ruby a sympathetic look. "Ruby, I would follow you into a battlefield without question, right? Because I know _you_ know what you're doing." She straightened up, the overhead light catching on her scar. "So trust _me_ when I tell you I've been around corporate espionage for longer than you've been grooming Crescent Rose. Sun's right about this. It's a cover-up. The pieces don't fit right and they owe us the truth." Weiss looked over at Pyrrha, visibly torn. " _Someone_ owes us the truth," she mumbled.

Sun threw up his hands. He never thought _he'd_ be on the ice queen's side of anything, but he was grateful he wasn't the only one asking the hard questions. "Thank you!"

Ruby looked between Weiss and Sun, betrayed. "But… But you saw her fighting the dragon up close, Weiss. And...and Cinder was behind the White Fang and the Grimm. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense?"

Pyrrha apologized again, apropos of nothing. Sun didn't miss the desperate look that Jaune exchanged with Ruby. He opened his mouth to read her a laundry list of inconsistencies but Neptune's arm jerked him back.

In a tone of voice very much like Ironwood's, Neptune said, "Hey. It's not our place."

Sun yanked out of his grip. "I can't believe you're buying this!"

"The only reason they haven't disappeared her to some far away island is because they trust us. Yeah," Neptune clarified, seeing the argument in Sun's hard lines, "maybe not with the truth, but they trust us with _her._ She's not our— If her team says they're buying it because it's what needs to be done to get keep them together, then I am too." His gaze shifted to Weiss, pleading. "We _all_ should."

Weiss looked over to Ruby, eyes critical. Ruby looked ready to throw herself on her knees, and Weiss dropped her gaze to the floor at last. She sighed, acquiescing. Her tone was bitter. "Alright. If it protects Pyrrha."

Sun's hands balled into fists. He looked at his feet, thinking that if Blake were here, they'd listen to Blake. He chanced another glance at Pyrrha, and there it was again. Savage and plain and burning in her eyes. _Run._

"I'm sorry," he said. And he meant it.

Then he did run, walking swiftly out of the room and down the stone hallway. Ruby called his name, but Sun refused to turn back around.

At the guarded door, Neptune caught up to him. Sun smacked away the reach of his hand with his tail and they both stopped dead.

"She _knows_ what really happened," Sun said angrily, not caring that his words echoed loud in the hallway. A wounded, spiteful part of him hoped JNPR and RWBY heard him in the room. "The adults _know!"_

"Yeah, and I can deal with that," Neptune hissed. "Why can't you?"

"Because I can't _live_ with myself like this," Sun admitted suddenly. "How are we supposed to stop it from happening again if they won't tell us the truth of what happened the _first_ time? How am I supposed to protect you or Scarlet or Sage or Blake if I don't know what I'm protecting you _from?_ Is it the crazy lady on the airwaves? Is it the White Fang? I don't know! Am I supposed to protect you all from _Pyrrha?"_

Neptune didn't have an answer, like Sun knew he wouldn't. They stood in place in pregnant silence.

"You really can't do this," Neptune said softly, "can you?"

Sun's tail curled around his hips.

"...What do you want to do?" Neptune asked.

Sun sighed. He shuffled the last few inches to the door and pushed it open, exiting without a backwards glance. He needed to say goodbye to Blake.

* * *

Author's Note: 67 Faves and 124 Follows. Hello all you lovely new beautiful people who keep finding this story! If you review, I'll always respond. A bit behind on those because of vacation, but I do answer everything.

My rule for this story was always to remain as true to character as possible. Yes, it's a story about consequences and loneliness and whether you can really cheat destiny, but the bottom line is a story about characters in a show that we have all communally experienced in our own ways. If nothing else, I wanted to remain true to the struggles and morals of those characters and paint with them in the context of this story. Regardless, here is where I'm expecting a lot of debate.

Also, as I finish editing this, I've just watched episode 4.7. On the one hand, I am kind of proud that I was in-tune enough with the show to develop the plot device for _Phoenix Down_ regarding voices in one's head and dissociation of self and more than one aura in one body. On the other hand, I'm dreading that people will start coming to this story after the fact and giving me grief over "copying" what, up until now, I was doing my best to keep a creative idea. Fingers crossed.

Going to take a break for about a month to catch up on writing and editing the next chapters since I severely fell behind over holiday break. Will be back around Valentine's Day with more, so don't you fret :)

Chapter Title: "I will lie inert unseen / my hair same colored / with grass and leaves. / Gather me / for the autumn fires / with the withered sheaves." -I Will Lie Down, May Swenson


	7. the nicest people are always broken

Nora had never been on a more depressing airship in her _life_.

The Atlesian airship to Vale was crowded full of downturned faces. Most of them were residents who had been evacuated to outlying areas and emergency shelters by the government. The airship had picked up a group of them with plans to return them to the wreckage of the city so they could try and salvage what remained of their homes and livelihoods.

A large portion of the hunters and huntresses that had been quarantined after the battle had decided to help rebuild rather than return to their kingdoms, and they scattered among the residents. The teenagers spoke with the survivors, offered hugs and reassurance, and would have been a grounding presence, if most of them didn't look like they were on hairpin triggers. They weren't the only ones. Intermixed in the crowd were the Atlesian soldiers who were escorting the quarantined hunters — uneasily standing shoulder to shoulder with the Valerian national guardsmen who were escorting the civilians. Nora's hand kept twitching to Magnhild every time the ship jolted and the two countries brushed together.

Construction workers milled about and discussed whether testing the water supply for Grimm contamination would provide any insight into the attack. They commented on their top priority situation regarding whether Beacon Tower remained structurally sound enough to reconstruct or if they should demolish it and rebuild it from ground zero. One bushy-mustached man suggested they give up Beacon altogether and rebuild the tower somewhere more easily defendable.

Nora and Ren stood at the front of the ship, watching the crowd. Their backs were to the glass windows and the dark wilds below them, somewhere over Forever Fall. Two weeks ago, they would have been able to see the skyline of a glowing Beacon from here.

"This is the most depressing airship ride," Ren commented.

Nora smirked to herself and combed through for a silver lining. "Not as bad as when we left."

Ren considered this. "That's fair."

She lightly poked his ribs. "How are you holding up in this big tin can?"

His eye twitched but it wasn't a full wince. "Been better." He gingerly nudged her broken arm with his hip. "You?"

"I'm running out of space to doodle on my cast."

The corner of his lip tipped up and Nora felt a weight pull back from her shoulders. Nothing could ever be so terrible if Ren could smile for her.

Yet his lips stretched in the opposite direction a moment later. He hunched over his ribs more consciously.

"We shouldn't have let her come, Nora," he said to his feet.

Nora glanced at the closed door on the other side of the room and shrugged with her good shoulder. In Pyrrha's position, Nora might have wanted to be sequestered away, snug in a bed surrounded on all sides by human shields of muscled doofuses — as Ren and Jaune and Pyrrha were sometimes considered. But when they'd caught Pyrrha trying to sneak out of her room, clinging to the wall in her hospital gown and radiating heat like an exposed propulsion coil, she'd looked them all straight in the face and told them she _had_ to come. She did this, she'd said, she had to fix it.

"She's Pyrrha," Nora said, as if that explained everything. "They probably shouldn't have let us come either, but that _barely_ stopped us."

"We only broke some bones."

Nora looked over at Ren, at the way he watched the door across the room with tight shoulders and a guarded expression. Abruptly, she realized he wasn't telling her something. That was so off-base for their relationship, Nora briefly thought she must have misread his body language.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

There was a split second where it looked like Ren was going to attempt to lie to her, but then the door to the captain's quarters opened.

Pyrrha limped into the crowded bulkhead. She walked as tall as she could manage, using Milo as a pseudo walking cane. From Ren and Nora's vantage point, she looked like a different person. No swath of red hair fell down her back. No swath of red draped her hip either since she'd been forced to use her sash as a tourniquet. The lack of crimson accents made her peculiar mismatched greaves stand out. One bronze and polished, the other identical in design but shaped out of gray and silver steel from Beacon Tower.

A moment later, Jaune emerged from the door and jogged to her side. He looked odd too — without his chest plate and shoulder guards and only Crocea Mors gleaming white at his hip. He'd been wearing his Pumpkin Pete's hoodie rather openly for the last week or so, which was the longest he'd ever managed without Nora teasing him about it. Nora made a note to make up for lost time...as soon as things settled back to normal.

The crowd did its best to part as Jaune and an apologetic Pyrrha pushed through to the front of the airship where Nora and Ren stood.

"Captain says we're almost there," Jaune said.

"Excellent," Ren nodded, passing a hand over his ribcage. "I'm about ready to get off this ship."

Nora tossed him a look that made it clear she was not going to forget their prior conversation, but turned to Jaune and Pyrrha nonetheless. "You hanging in there, Vomit Boy?"

"Don't look at the trash can in the captain's quarters," Jaune admitted, holding his stomach a bit dramatically. Pyrrha patted his shoulder.

"How about you?" Nora asked Pyrrha. "How are you feeling? And don't say _fine_."

Pyrrha shut her mouth — Nora had spotted the 'F' already forming on her lips — and reconsidered.

"Strange," she admitted. "I...I don't know if I'm ready to see it."

The ship jolted. Pyrrha stumbled, and the air around Team JNPR jumped up about ten degrees before Jaune steadied her. By the wary looks of the civilians and hunters closest to them, the fluctuation didn't go unnoticed.

"...I should probably sit down," Ren announced, delicately pushing off the window behind him.

"Agreed," Jaune said, taking stock of the shifting crowd around them. "There's coffee and seats in the captain's quarters."

"You had me at coffee," Nora chirped, trying for casual.

As the four of them began to walk back, the crowd parted for them far more willingly. Murmurs reverberated around the room; hunters, civilians, and soldiers alike stared at Pyrrha, who steadfastly ignored them. She didn't comment when Ren put a hand on her lower back to push her forward a little more insistently.

And then someone loudly said, "What is _she_ doing here?"

Nora caught sight of the girl who spoke, and her heart panged. Ciel Soleil from Atlas.

Pyrrha stopped cold. Her facade of composure faltered as the huntress stepped towards her.

"Oh, hello," Pyrrha said after a beat. "I'm...here to help with the reconstruction efforts."

"You sure you're not here to _finish the job?_ " the girl spat. One of her teammates put a hand on her arm to keep her from taking another step.

" _Hey_ ," Nora interjected. Sympathy took a backseat. "Watch it."

Jaune pushed Pyrrha just a hair behind him. "General Ironwood cleared her to leave."

It was a total lie, but a bluff an Atlesian huntsman might respect. Not Ciel. Her eyes narrowed.

"Was that _before_ or _after_ he resigned because his science experiment killed my partner on broadcast?"

The effect was immediate. The pulse of Ciel's words rippled through the room, and anyone who had trouble remembering who Pyrrha Nikos was sure as hell remembered her now. The murmurs increased in volume — _Poledina that was her holy shit Mistral Tournament why is she I thought I recognized —_ and Pyrrha fought not to break character.

"I'm...I'm sorry," she said. "I never meant to—"

"It was an accident," Ren affirmed, flanking his teammate. The three of them now effectively stood between Pyrrha and Ciel and the kind of mess no one on that airship needed right now.

"Oh," Ciel cut in harshly, "is that what we're calling _murder_ now?"

The presence that Pyrrha always carried when she walked into a room was suddenly gone. In its place was resignation _._ Like when they'd told her Sun and Neptune had returned to Mistral. Like she'd been waiting for this all along. And in that moment, Nora realized that whatever had happened to Pyrrha — aura experiment or otherwise — had taken her friend's long-won resolve to never let them see you hurt.

Nora decided the next person who had something to say was going to get a mouthful of their own teeth.

Fortunately, that person happened to be on her side. The captain's door opened, exposing General Winter Schnee to the room. The Atlesian soldiers and Valerian guardsmen in the crowd eased back, both clearly wanting to diffuse the situation and having no idea how.

"Team JNPR? If you would be so kind," Winter said calmly.

Pyrrha turned from Ciel and broke ranks to hobble towards the captain's quarters. Jaune and Ren followed right on her heels. Ciel's teammates pulled her back into the crowd, and in case Winter's glacial stare wasn't enough, Nora shot the masses a dangerous look before following her team. Conversation swelled on the other side of the door the instant it shut.

The captain's quarters was a modest little sitting area between the cockpit and the bulkhead, made less for the captain and more for guests of honor. It had a leather couch in one corner with a small metal coffee table. Against the opposite wall, there was a television and a coffee machine with mugs. Nora made a beeline for it and jabbed at the buttons for something decaf.

Pyrrha didn't react when Jaune took Milo from her and swung her arm across his shoulders. Steadily, he eased them both down onto the couch.

As if on cue, the door to the cockpit opened and Weiss stepped into the room. Winter's promotion meant heading the Atlesian side of reconstruction efforts, and she'd needed an assistant that knew Beacon in and out like Weiss did. Ruby had stayed behind to care for her sister and Blake.

The heiress took one look at the four of them and Winter and glared. "What happened?"

Nora didn't trust her tongue right then, so she focused on her coffee as Ren took a seat at one end of the couch behind her. Jaune pulled Pyrrha's arm off from across his shoulders but kept his other arm securely wrapped around her waist. Pyrrha stared at the floor.

"Well?" Weiss demanded when no one answered.

"Penny's teammate got...emotional...when she saw Pyrrha," Ren explained.

"Well of course she did," Weiss mumbled. There was an _I would too_ somewhere in there, but Weiss swallowed it down with expert finesse. She sighed and continued more calmly. "We shouldn't push our luck. As far as anyone knows, Pyrrha's the reason we were all locked away underground for a week."

"I see." Ren looked over at Winter who was standing silently by the door they had entered. "And what _do_ they know?"

"That concurrent with an unrelated terrorist attack on the Vytal Festival, Ms. Nikos underwent an Atlas sanctioned experiment that neatly explains her new appearance and powerset," Winter recited. She subtly indicated the proximity of the cockpit. "That's all _you_ know as well."

Nora made her coffee in silence, then tip-toed over to sit on the arm of the couch closest to Ren. She carried with her a balancing act of drinks between her good arm and her cast. Delicately, she handed a mug of hot water with a chai tea packet floating in it to her partner. Then Nora placed a cup of water and a second mug with green tea in front of Pyrrha on the table. "Are you okay?"

Pyrrha's shoulders trembled. She gave a small, hollow laugh and shook her head, eyes downcast.

Jaune murmured her name, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over the brooch with her emblem. Two weeks ago, Pyrrha would have been a mess of butterflies and blushing embarrassment at the contact. Now, Nora wasn't even sure she noticed.

"What can we do?" Ren asked gently.

Pyrrha brought a hand up to cover her mouth, and her voice broke on the breath of her words. "Tell me you don't hate me."

Nora put down her coffee. For a long time, she'd believed the lies they told in fancy magazines and television shows, that girls like Pyrrha — tall, beautiful, talented, and smart — didn't know how to cry. How could they, when everything they ever wanted came so easily.

Wordlessly, Nora leaned in behind Ren and wrapped herself like a shawl across Pyrrha's shoulders, burying her face in the back of her neck. Ren shifted so he could embrace them both. Jaune squeezed the arm around her waist, brought his other hand around to hold her close. Weiss walked around the coffee table and moved aside some cream and sugar to sit. After a brief hesitation, she placed a hand of comfort on Pyrrha's iron greave.

They stayed like that until the ship landed. Human shields of muscled doofuses.

* * *

The first thing recovered was the cafeteria. The structural damage to the walls and roof was severe. All the windows were blown out, and more than half the foundations were collapsed. If you could spot the texture of the floor beneath all the rubble, your Semblance was X-ray vision.

Glynda spent hours on the labored reconstruction. With a pinpoint finesse, she reshaped bricks from tonnes of rubble and panes of glass from crystal dust, setting each in a proper sequence until the cafeteria was whole again, and the hunters and huntresses in training had a place to sleep — just like they had the night before their initiation. The crowd of teenagers from schools across the kingdoms shuffled underneath the newly remade roof with sleeping bags under their arms. An electric unease vibrated through the cool night air as the group began settling in and assessing the true safety of the space they occupied.

Team JNPR had been offered separate quarters — a tent on the grounds where the military slept, or a room aboard the parked airship that Weiss and Winter had claimed as their living space — but they'd turned down the special treatment. Pyrrha had insisted she was still just a huntress. Team JNPR would take the floor like all the others.

Every stare and whisper shoved hard against Jaune's peace of mind as he and his team crossed the cafeteria. He clutched his sleeping bag against his chest to hide his white-knuckled flinches at the scattered murmurs of syllables that made up Pyrrha's name. Ren made Nora carry both their bags in her good arm, if only so she wouldn't have an opportunity to reach for Magnhild. Pyrrha handled it better than any of them, walking the length of the cafeteria with professional disaffection and throwing down her sleeping bag in the far corner of the hall. Jaune motioned and rest of his team set up around her, boxing her against the wall. Jaune beside her, Nora beside him — with Magnhild _very_ visibly at the ready — and Ren settled perpendicular to their three sets of feet. He was a little more subtle about Stormflower in the sleeves of his pajamas.

Despite the skittish attention from the other hunters, Jaune felt an overwhelming serenity once they'd all settled down for the night. They were four heartbeats, four breaths, all together again. His second family rested within reach of his own two hands, and there was nothing in the world he would trade for that feeling. Jaune fell asleep in minutes.

And woke hours later, in the middle of the night, for reasons he couldn't immediately explain. Jaune sat up, reacting, reaching for Crocea Mors shoved into his sleeping bag. But the cafeteria looked unchanged, filled with snores, ruffling sheets, and people talking in their sleep. At each set of doors, armed Atlesian soldiers stood guard, conversing in whispers. Jaune checked on Ren and Nora, who were sleeping deeply, and then on Pyrrha.

She was balled up away from him, facing the wall, and playing with her own fingers like they belonged to a stranger. Her skin glowed ever so softly, and she made no move to acknowledge that Jaune was up.

He blinked at her glowing form — mostly hidden in her sleeping bag — and finally realized what woke him up. The _heat_ coming off Pyrrha was sweltering _._ Jaune opened his sleeping bag to cool off and pushed back the sleeves of his loaned pajamas. He glanced over at the back of Pyrrha's head as he settled back down, stuck on the thought that he should be looking at more red hair. When he'd asked the doctors why they'd cut it, they'd said it had been burned so badly, they couldn't be in the room with her without gagging.

"It sure feels weird to be sleeping back here, doesn't it?" he whispered. "Who can sleep thinking they're gonna be thrown off a cliff tomorrow."

Pyrrha's shoulders bunched up — then relaxed once she realized it was Jaune speaking to her. She rolled onto her back, her head lolling to the side to see Jaune's face in the dim light of the moon.

"Some of us have landing strategies, Jaune," she answered in a hushed tone.

"And some of us have partners with excellent hand-eye coordination," he said, trying for a joke. Pyrrha's smile eeked a little closer to her eyes. He counted that as a win. "Can't sleep?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "I must not be tired from...however long I was out."

Jaune shrugged, folding his hands over his stomach. "It happens to the best of us. And the best of us happens to be you."

Pyrrha averted her gaze to bite down on her smile. But she did a double take at Jaune's rolled up sleeves and folded-down sleeping bag. Her humor vanished and immediately, the heat dissipated; her faint glowing stopped.

Before Pyrrha could stammer her apology, Jaune said, "You know, uh, that's a pretty neat ability. We'll never need a campfire...or a radiator..."

Pyrrha wouldn't look at him. She pulled her hands close to her chest and Jaune struggled to say something, _anything_ — anything that would chase the shame from her eyes.

"It's okay! Really," he swore. "I was probably going to wake up soon anyway." He peered over his shoulder at the opposite wall of windows. The moon was sitting just behind the jagged spiked claw of Beacon Tower's remains, making it look like a waiting Grimm. "I haven't been sleeping too great."

Pyrrha warily followed his gaze, then brought the flap of her sleeping bag up to her chin. Her head turned away to stare at the ceiling and she searched a moment for her words. "How are you doing with all this?"

Jaune turned to look back at her, one eyebrow raised. " _You're_ asking _me?_ "

"Yes."

He half-thought she was joking. He should have known better. Jaune settled onto his back and looked up at the rafters too. Maybe there was some kind of answer hiding up there.

"Okay, well, I...keep thinking we're going to wake up back in the dorms. Or, I dunno, I think I'm going to wake up late and get sent to detention because I missed Oobleck's class. It's stupid, I know," he admitted softly. "But, geez, I _want_ to be back in detention."

They both stared at the ceiling for a few heartbeats in silence.

"How about you?" Jaune asked. "How are you doing with all this?" The moment he said it, he winced. "Sorry. Sorry, you've got to be sick of people asking."

"I'm not," she said. "It… It means a lot that you all care for me."

Jaune swallowed down the the lump in his throat and the voice in his head that whispered _you didn't care enough, that's why this happened._ He slowly turned on his side and reached out into the small space between them — leaving his hand, palm up, in the center of their divide. An offering.

Pyrrha looked over, searching his face for something neither of them quite had a name for. After a minute, she rolled onto her side as well and slipped her hand into his. Their grips were firm, anchoring.

"I just want everything to go back to normal," Pyrrha confessed quietly.

"It will. I promise."

She shook her head. "You don't know that. I can't..." She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. When she opened them again, Jaune saw the moon's reflection and molten ivy and the evolution of fire glinting back at him. "Jaune, I don't seem different to you?"

"So you have a couple superpowers. So what." He gripped her hand a little tighter. "You're still Pyrrha. Whatever this is, it's in you, but it's _not_ you."

Pyrrha looked at their hands instead of his face. Jaune tried to focus on her expression and not the feeling of her breath on the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. "I never wanted anyone to worry about me."

"Well, I have bad news," Jaune said with a smile. "I've been worrying about you for like a year and a half."

"You have?"

"Of course I have, you're my partner," he said. As if that explained the way his heart was pounding. As if it explained the way he kept wanting to run his hand through her hair.

She smiled at him, a tiny shy thing that felt more real to him than anything had in the last two weeks. "Thank you, Jaune."

"You're my best friend," he answered. He'd said it when she'd woken up, but he'd been such a mess then, he wasn't sure she understood any of what he blubbered into her neck. And that was all before Qrow's reveal of magic and Maidens and miracles. He sure needed to hear it again, to remind himself that this is what Pyrrha needed. Her friend. Her _best_ friend.

It took Pyrrha another hour to fall asleep, and Jaune distracted her by talking about his airsickness, his family, his X-Ray and Vav comics. He talked about everything except what he _really_ wanted to which was that she'd kissed him, and he had no idea how to tell her how badly he wanted to kiss her again. And lay with her in his arms. And never let the world hurt her. He didn't want to embarrass her in case it was a desperate, selfish thing she'd done in a moment of panic to save his life. He didn't want to embarrass himself in case he did actually imagine it because his concussion had robbed him of clarity. Jaune wanted her to be happy, and Pyrrha wanted things to be normal. And, right now, this was normal.

Jaune wouldn't let her down. He could wait. As long as she needed.

* * *

The following morning before sunrise, Weiss came to wake them all up with an itemized list of tasks put together by General Schnee and Headmistress Goodwitch. Everyone dressed and grouped in teams as Weiss, wearing an uncomfortable soldier's uniform instead of her usual hunting attire, stood on a bench flanked by guards to read out assignments for the day. Team CRDL would be on Grimm patrol; CFVY and half of FNKY were on dorm reconstruction; NDGO were put in charge of supply distribution. The teams filtered out one by one to carry out their jobs — until only JNPR remained.

"Nora Valkyrie is to join the demolition teams on Main Street," Weiss read. Nora grinned and expertly twirled Magnhild in her one good hand. "Lie Ren needs to report to the medical tent for a follow-up on his injuries. If cleared, he may assist the therapists in taking notes and cataloging patient concerns." Ren nodded. "Jaune Arc should report to the eastern border of Forever Fall for perimeter establishment. And Pyrrha Nikos—"

Weiss stopped, frowned, and double tapped her short-range scroll to enhance. She scrolled up and down, then looked up at the waiting faces. "Pyrrha has no assignment."

Pyrrha shrunk. "Oh."

Looking worried, Weiss switched around some screens on her scroll, double and triple checking the information she had been sent. She muttered, "Hold on," and quickly sent a message. The five of them, plus the two guards, waited.

Weiss's scroll chimed.

"Pyrrha Nikos is to assist the teammate of her choice, and remain exclusively in their company for the remainder of the day."

Team JNPR exchanged a look.

"C'mon, Pyrrha," Nora said after a beat. "I'm sure it'll help to smash stuff and throw around some wreckage. I know it's going to help _me,"_ she joked.

"Yes. Of course."

"They're still new at this," Jaune reassured her. "They'll get their system straightened out by tomorrow and give you something to do."

Pyrrha nodded. Weiss stepped down from her bench and waited a beat too long before wishing them luck and heading out with the soldiers. Stubbornly gripping Milo for support, Pyrrha channeled her focus into limping all the way from the cafeteria to the waiting air shuttle. Nora followed at her side, and Jaune and Ren watched them go in the growing light of the morning.

"She's not alright, is she?" Ren said as soon as he was positive the girls were out of earshot.

"...She's Pyrrha," Jaune replied.

Ren pressed his lips into a thin line. "That's what Nora said, and that's not an answer."

Jaune yanked both of his belts tighter, securing Crocea Mors to his hip. "I know. But it's the only answer I have."

Ren's expression turned apologetic. "Jaune…"

But Jaune started to walk off in the direction of the running path that lead along the border of Forever Fall. He didn't turn back around. Ren watched him leave, then looked up at the sound of an Atlesian supply ship docking not far from the school. He shelved his worries with great difficulty, and headed towards the medical tents, hoping against hope.

Maybe if Pyrrha just saw the sun, it would strip her eyes of their emptiness.

* * *

Author's Note: Welcome back everyone! 102 faves and 160 follows, that's _crazy._ That's like 40 more of you up in the cheap seats than I had at last update. And that's not mentioning all the new lovelies that have reviewed over break. Ya'll are the best.

I really needed a breath to deal with Real Life, but the cons of taking such a long break is that you're then left with over a month to edit a chapter and go over it with a fine-tooth comb, enough times to make you cross-eyed. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I've reached the point where I need to publish it or I will never let it go. I'd be curious to know if anyone can tell if the chapter reads differently from those before it as a result.

Alas, Real Life isn't finished with me yet. I've got a lot of balls up in the air at the moment, so I'm going to try and be back with bi-monthly posts from here on out. I'd rather have a definite chapter for you every two weeks than a random chapter whenever it's convenient. Feel free to review or PM me while you wait. I think I'll keep up this tradition of offering a preview of next chapter to those who leave a review :)

Chapter Title: "A heart of gold but a mind of poison / The nicest of people are always broken / It feels just like you and I / There lying. They're lying" -Hero, Blossom


	8. a thing that can ignite

Pyrrha learned quickly that _fame_ and _fear_ had similar but distinct flavors.

It started small. She would say good morning to the people she passed and none would return her greeting. Construction workers would come to ask Nora to clear debris or other hunters would ask Jaune for his opinion on a certain task and Pyrrha would stand beside them, completely ignored. When she absolutely had to be addressed — because she was in the way or someone needed another member of Team JNPR to do something — it was always with bowed heads and averted eyes and the panic of prey animals. She said thank you, and sorry, and please like she always did. People just stopped saying it back.

Every morning, Pyrrha had the same assignment: pick a teammate and stay with that teammate to complete their task. It was an obvious way to guarantee she was never alone and always supervised. If she wasn't standing beside Ren and serving unappetizing meals in the makeshift food tents, she was trailing Nora and helping the construction teams obliterate debris with only the smallest fraction of her now-overpowered Semblance. A few times, she tried to join Jaune on the Grimm-clearing sweeps that were still necessary when the beasts had taken to abandoned homes and dark storefronts instead of returning to their forests and caves. Jaune had talked her out of it each time. Yes, he argued gently, she was walking better, but she was still recovering; she couldn't use Milo as a crutch _and_ a weapon at the same time. He'd looked so concerned when he said it, Pyrrha had acquiesced without much fight. The last thing she wanted was for him to worry more about her.

Every night since the first, her routine for falling asleep was Jaune. He held her hand as they laid down to rest and whispered to her in the dark — about his day, about anything under the stars — and lulled her into dreamless sleep where the voices inside and outside of her head blended together in a paint spill of auras and tactile sound. Occasionally, she woke up when Nora had a bad dream and squeezed herself into Ren's sleeping bag. Jaune sometimes threw an arm around her waist or shoulders in his sleep, as if confirming that she was still there. It wasn't too bad, she tried to convince herself, and almost believed it.

While Pyrrha rebuilt her school, the Maidens rarely spoke out of turn. Georgina applauded her composure through it all, even as Cinder often flickered to life in fury at the smallest of personal slights. Other auras countered whatever malice she tried to inject into Pyrrha's mind, and Amber often lead the wave. Alexandria sang Pyrrha lullabies on the nights when the sound of Jaune's voice wasn't enough to get her to sleep; Elphaba encouraged her to _talk_ to Jaune about the things that needed talking about, and Faith wanted her to practice her new powers. Pyrrha politely declined their gentle pushes. She couldn't bear to test the nature of her relationship with Jaune or JNPR.

As a whole, the Maidens disagreed with her choice to stay, and Pyrrha understood why. She knew she was putting herself under near-unbearable pressure by restraining her magic. It felt like clenching a muscle for every minute of every day — just so she could walk out the door. If she heated up like an oven when she lost focus, it was only because she got so _tired_ sometimes. She'd never suffered from claustrophobia, but every crowded hall or tiny tent with more than five people left her with a punch of terror to her lungs. Sometimes, after a full day of marginally assisting her teammates in various tasks, the bravest thing she did was walk back into the packed cafeteria for the night.

Pyrrha knew the others picked up on her constant tension. Her blank stares into the distance as she listened to the Maidens conversing, her total withdrawal from personal training. A member of JNPR was always at her side; it was impossible for them not to notice. But Nora kept insisting that whatever task they had today would cheer her up. Ren pushed her to rest as much as possible. And Jaune kept reassuring her that things would settle, given enough time. Pyrrha wished she had their confidence.

Finally, on the twentieth day of following her teammates around on their chores, Pyrrha waited awkwardly alongside some Valerian construction workers near the From Dust Till Dawn shop in downtown. Though she no longer had to rely on Milo to walk, her lower calf and ankle remained temperamental and so Pyrrha leaned against a freshly reconstructed wall. Nora was uncharacteristically late for her assignment. Nora was usually the first one up and out of her sleeping bag on 'smashing days' as she called them.

As Pyrrha waited, an Atlesian patrol crossed the adjoining street and caught sight of her and the workers. One soldier nudged the other and they walked over to Pyrrha.

"Good morning," Pyrrha said when they stopped in front of her.

"Where is your guard?" one of the men asked tersely.

Pyrrha blinked at him. "My what."

"Ms. Nikos, you are not allowed to be out in the city unsupervised," the second soldier said, a woman. She grabbed Pyrrha rather firmly by the upper arm.

"Nora's on...on her way," Pyrrha stammered, thrown by the unexpected hostility. "I'm sorry, have I done something wrong?"

"General Schnee's orders," the male soldier said, grabbing her by the other arm.

Pyrrha glanced at the construction workers. They looked almost relieved that the soldiers were taking her away.

"My teammate should be here any minute now," Pyrrha tried again. She was ignored and pulled off the wall by both soldiers. She came as willingly as she could. "Where are we going?"

Neither of them answered. They led her through the city, past other teams helping with other tasks, and towards the parked airship currently acting as reconstruction headquarters. Winter descended from the gangplank just as they arrived.

"What happened?" Winter asked.

The soldiers released Pyrrha before their commander in chief. Pyrrha stumbled to reclaim her balance and rubbed her arms in mild annoyance. "I'm sorry, I was supposed to meet with Nora to clear up debris around From Dust Till Dawn—"

"She was in the city unescorted," a soldier interrupted.

"I see. Thank you," Winter said, dismissing them with a hand. "Resume your patrol."

They saluted and left Pyrrha with their General.

"Where is your partner?" Winter asked once they were out of earshot.

"Jaune is on dorm reconstruction today," Pyrrha said, trying desperately to hide the confusion in her tone. This was her first time seeing Winter in the three weeks since they'd arrived. "I was supposed to meet Nora at her assignment today but she ran late."

"Ms. Valkyrie and her partner have been detained for disciplinary action."

Pyrrha stared. She had been with JNPR most of the morning, had sat between Jaune and Ren for breakfast not an hour and a half ago. "When?"

Winter pulled out her short-range scroll and typed out a message. "You will be escorted back to Ms. Valkyrie's assignment momentarily."

"But—"

Pyrrha was interrupted as Weiss ducked her head out the airship's door, looking grumpy. She flashed her scroll at her sister. "You could have shouted."

"A general does not shout," Winter answered, looking the tiniest bit smug at the declaration. "Your friend needs an escort for her task."

Weiss noticed Pyrrha and wiped the annoyance from her face. "Oh. Of course."

"Please inform Weiss of where you two need to return. From Dust Till Dawn, yes?" Winter said dismissively and crossed paths with her sister as she went back inside the airship. "Send me a full status report on the progress of all the storefronts downtown."

"Of course." Weiss saluted her sister as a formality and began walking back towards where Pyrrha had come, indicating that the redhead follow.

"What happened?" Pyrrha asked as she limped beside Weiss. "What did Nora do?"

"You didn't hear it from me," Weiss prefaced. Pyrrha nodded and Weiss's professional expression soured into a more Weiss-appropriate scowl. "She punched Cardin Winchester. In the face. With her hammer." She sighed. "Ren helped."

Pyrrha opened and shut her mouth a few times. "Why..." she finally managed. "Why would they _do_ that?"

For a moment, Weiss's annoyance flickered to indecision — and Pyrrha knew the answer in the breath before Weiss's lie.

They made it a few blocks in silence, with the Maidens buzzing in Pyrrha's head to shelve common courtesy just this once and ask the question. They made cases for her personal well-being and the greater good, but Pyrrha was reluctant. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know.

At last, she mumbled, "What did he say about me?"

Weiss bristled. To her credit, she kept her eyes forward. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Pyrrha gave Weiss a rather hard look. "It takes a lot to get Ren to strike someone out of turn. Whether he was defending Nora or not."

Weiss flinched at Pyrrha's tone. She sighed and bowed her head.

"They know I'm your friend," she admitted. "The soldiers who witnessed it wouldn't tell me. They probably thought I'd punch Cardin in the face too."

"Would you?"

Pyrrha hadn't meant to say that, but it was out of her mouth now. Weiss looked up at her, searching her face.

"...probably," Weiss said. Pyrrha appreciated the honesty in her hesitance, if nothing else.

"Thanks," she answered.

Weiss searched her a moment longer. "The escort thing wasn't my idea. Glynda and Winter only mentioned it to me after—"

"It's alright, Weiss," Pyrrha assured her. She needed Weiss to back off a little, because she felt that any kind of civility she tried for right now was going to be very obviously faked.

They arrived at the front of From Dust Till Dawn. The owner was there, talking with the construction workers about the ongoing setbacks to repairing Beacon Tower. They all stopped at the sight of Weiss and Pyrrha. Weiss explained to the men that she would be supervising Pyrrha and helping with clearing debris today. Pyrrha heard her through a haze of hurt that muffled her hearing and vision. She wanted to get this over with.

Weiss stood back as the construction workers attempted to tell Pyrrha what they needed her to do, pointing to the pieces of a dragon-smashed building littering the front of the shop. Pyrrha nodded.

She stood at the intersection and held out a hand to the debris. She'd been exceptionally careful with her Semblance the last few weeks because of how hyper-sensitive she had been to metal ever since her aura became a group home. But maybe she was a little too emotional. Maybe she was tired. Or maybe a dark little voice in the back of her head finally broke from its cage, through the clamouring Maidens and the insecurities and the shell of civility, and whispered, _How dare_ _they._

Her Semblance _pushed_ and every piece of metal from where Pyrrha stood to a mile down the road _shoved_ in the same direction. The metallic tsunami screeched and tore through the road in front of it, sweeping up cars and street lights and wreckage. It came to an abrupt halt, piled twenty-five feet in the air, fifteen blocks away from where Pyrrha stood.

Pyrrha didn't have it in her to fake the shock that was genuine in Weiss and the men behind her.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha said without inflection. "I don't believe I'm feeling well." She lowered her arm and glanced at Weiss. "Could you escort me back to the cafeteria?"

"Yeah," Weiss said after a moment. "Yeah, I'll walk you."

* * *

Winter looked up from a supply manifesto at her desk as she heard her sister returning to the airship. She stood and met Weiss in the hallway. "How is downtown looking?"

Weiss looked dazed, but she mustered up a salute. "Wreckage is cleared from all of the shopping district."

The older Schnee's brow furrowed. "I thought there was still roughly a mile that was inaccessible."

Lowering her arm back to her side, Weiss stared at a spot just to her sister's left. "Pyrrha took care of it."

"...I see," Winter said. She glanced around the changing shift of soldiers on the ship and indicated that Weiss follow her back to her office. As Winter secured the door, Weiss stood in the center of the room, adjusting the itchy collar of her uniform.

"Anything else to report," Winter asked formally.

Weiss huffed a breath. "The last supply ship was understaffed, and the Valerian guardsmen you put under my supervision have finally stopped talking about me behind my back. The citizens of Vale from the most damaged districts are due to be transferred back to their homes over the next few weeks. We're ahead of schedule on Beacon with support from all the hunters and huntresses in training. Unbelievably, Headmistress Goodwitch says we're on track to reopen for next semester at this rate. The Beacon Tower construction team is drawing up new plans to salvage what remains. I've almost finished that speech thanking the services of all the kingdoms for helping Vale in its time of need. It should be ready to broadcast as soon as CCTS service is restored." Weiss stopped to take a breath.

"Excellent. And Pyrrha Nikos still hasn't spoken with you," Winter finished, a statement rather than a question.

Weiss took a step back to lean against Winter's desk. She eyed a framed photo of Winter's graduation to Specialist, with Ironwood handing her the pins. "We haven't had the chance to discuss the progress of her recovery."

With an air of professionalism, Winter crossed the room to pull a thin maroon cloth over the window, leaving them in a muted red light. She then returned to her desk and surprised her sister by leaning against it at her side. "Father's not around, Weiss. The room isn't bugged. Talk to me."

Unconvinced, Weiss fidgeted in place, then pulled out her scroll to inspect it. Winter took it from her and shut it fully off, then did likewise with her own scroll and waited.

"I thought I was her friend," Weiss said at last. Her shoulders caved as she gripped the desk's edge. "I thought we'd come so far since I introduced myself in the locker rooms, and I thought…" Weiss knocked her military-issue boots together. "I thought she trusted me, Win. I thought the _adults_ trusted me."

"They do."

"Not as much as they trust _Jaune_ and _Ruby,_ " she said bitterly. Winter raised a brow and Weiss seethed. "Do they really think they're being subtle about it? Ruby's always the first to go looking for answers. She almost went after Roman Torchwick solo. But not this time, _no_ , this time Qrow's word is gospel, and it all makes perfect sense, _Weiss,_ what doesn't make sense, Weiss. And Jaune! He couldn't lie to a _brick wall_ and I…" Weiss looked crushed. "I thought _Ruby,_ of all people, would tell me the truth. I thought I'd proved to Goodwitch and Ozpin and Ironwood that they could _trust_ me, I…"

Weiss trailed off, staring accusingly at the rug in the center of the office. Winter sighed and leaned back. She did a small hop to be sitting fully on her own desk, indicating it was fine for Weiss to do the same. Weiss followed suit a moment later, swinging her feet in agitation and waiting for her sister's response to her unprofessional vent.

"Weiss," Winter said softly. "I know what father said to you."

Weiss blinked up in shock. "H-How much did you hear?"

Winter bumped Weiss's shoulder with hers. "I wheedled it out of the soldiers guarding his office as soon as I could pull rank." Her voice was sympathetic. "I know he wanted you to spy on Pyrrha and Goodwitch."

Weiss balled her hands into fists and glared at the carpet. "He said they were up to something big. Something world-changing and apocalyptic. They were using fairy tale code names and didn't tell him everything, but if I didn't come with you then he was going to lock me up in the house and—" she stopped, staring at Winter desperately. "That's not why I came! Win, you have to believe me. I wanted to help you and Vale—"

"I know," Winter said confidently. She wrapped an arm around Weiss's shoulders and waited for her sister to get over the paralysis of affection before leaning her cheek at the top of Weiss's head. "I know, sis."

Weiss shifted awkwardly for a moment, then reached around Winter's waist to return the embrace. "I guess this room really _isn't_ bugged," she teased.

"Ha ha," Winter said, doing her best not to smile. She rubbed Weiss's shoulder and, over the top of her sister's head, looked down at the photo on her desk. Winter shifted back to look Weiss in the eye once more. "On the topic of full disclosure... We are both holding the same cards. Ironwood didn't tell me much. He explained the experiment in detail and laid out a neat timeline of events, like you said he told you. He said he was resigning and that I was to replace him. If Glynda needed anything, I was to obey her like I would obey him."

"And you thought that was okay?"

"No. I refused his nomination. I informed the former General Ironwood that I would not do a damn thing until he told me what was going on."

Weiss crossed her arms cautiously. "What did he say?"

"It's need to know," she repeated, mimicking Ironwood's voice quite well. "And trust me, Schnee. When you need to know, I will personally be the first to tell you."

Weiss snickered at the impression, then settled against Winter more comfortably. She sobered up and couldn't really find the right note of humor in her voice to say, "If you can work with that, you've bled out most of your Schnee blood."

Winter smiled all the same. "Maybe. Or maybe I choose to trust the man who's held my life and my continent in his hands for longer than I've known the world needed defending." Winter turned to look at her sister. "Do you trust your friends?"

Weiss nodded.

 _"Independent_ of whether or not they trust _you."_

"I… I thought trust was a two-way street," Weiss muttered.

"And I used to believe in fairy tales," Winter said. She stood and Weiss hopped off the desk after her. Winter turned and reached out to adjust the collar on Weiss's uniform, to smooth out the wrinkles of her jacket, and tip her sister's face up to hers. "The world isn't black and white, Weiss. We choose the pallet we paint with. What will yours be?"

Weiss sighed, dipping her head. "I'll...think that over."

With a pat to her shoulder, Winter turned to re-open the window to her study. The beams of light caught on the dust hanging in the air between the sisters. Assuming she was dismissed, Weiss saluted Winter's back and turned to go — but stopped at the memory of the night Beacon fell. Color theory had kept her eyes on Pyrrha and the color red. Unfortunately, Cinder Fall and all her blood were also red.

"I wish she'd just talk to me," Weiss mumbled.

Winter tutted, not even offering her sister the courtesy of pretending she didn't hear. "You can always ask."

Planting her hands on her hips, Weiss shook her head at the floor. "Absolutely not. If I get too nosy, the adults take Pyrrha away. Ruby and JNPR won't ever forgive me."

"Then here we are," Winter said, sitting down at her desk. She pulled over a stack of shipping manifestos to approve. "Keep an eye on her. Let me know if anything changes. And send me a message when you get confirmation of the civilian ship leaving the refugee camp. Dismissed."

As Weiss returned to her assignment at the airship docks, she felt the weight of Myrtenaster at her hip. Purely on reflex, she wrapped her hand around the handle. Her muscle memory replayed just how quickly she'd grabbed for her weapon when Pyrrha cleared a city block as easily as a child swiping a hand across a floor littered with building blocks. With a pinch of effort, Weiss released the weapon, allowing her hand to swing at her side as she walked. She breathed through her nose and told herself she didn't want Pyrrha to be taken away. Really. Wholly. Truly.

Unless, of course, she was dangerous.

* * *

That night, Pyrrha huddled in her corner of the cafeteria with Jaune's back pressed against hers. Jaune had told her about his day working in the dorms, how depressing it had been to dig through rubble to salvage the personal effects of people he knew. Pyrrha had nodded along. She hadn't told him about clearing the street with Weiss, about spending most of the day napping on and off in the empty cafeteria under the watchful eyes of a rotating change of door guards. Ren and Nora had been released around dinner and had kept upsettingly silent about their whole ordeal, opting instead to talk about what a nice day it had been and if they were _really_ going to pull off reopening the school in time for the following school year. The two of them went to bed like it had been any other normal day, and all three of them were asleep soon enough. Shielding her from the rest of the world.

Pyrrha decided enough was enough.

Quietly and carefully, she removed herself from her sleeping bag and grabbed her hunting apparel. She considered Milo and Acouo before concluding that they were superfluous. With a prevalent limp, she tip-toed around sleeping hunters to the door. As she walked, she did her hair up in short pigtails.

The men at the door that night were Valerian guardsmen, not Atlesian soldiers. Pyrrha kept her head partially bowed in the low light and kept her voice hushed but confident. "I'm scheduled to assist with repairs tonight."

By their dress, one was a farmer and one was a smith of some kind. They looked her up and down. "We weren't told of any night work."

"They're, um, improving the structure of some...buildings and they need me."

The men exchanged a knowing smile and one pulled out his Scroll. "Let me check that. What's your name?"

 _Adelind,_ Georgina spoke up abruptly from the back of her mind. _Your name is Georgina Adelind._

"I'm Georgina Adelind," Pyrrha repeated without hesitation.

The smith looked up from the scroll. "Adelind? As in Adelind Ironworks in Northern Vale?"

"Yes," Pyrrha lied.

 _You're the great, great granddaughter of the founder,_ Georgina dictated, unable to fully hide the amusement in her tone. _Tell them your experience is needed to fortify the Great War era buildings that might have had red dust soldered into their framework. Before people knew how dangerous that was when exposed to sunlight._

Pyrrha relayed as much; she was pleasantly surprised when the smith took her at her word and stepped aside with a smile. He said he did his apprenticeship with her family's shop, and their weapons were the best quality bar none. The farmer looked less convinced of Pyrrha's story but did not stop her. Pyrrha nodded to them both as she passed and silently thanked Georgina.

 _You have more important things tonight,_ the Maiden replied, with a warmth that spread through Pyrrha's fingers and toes.

She headed out to Beacon Tower. The closer she got, the more her steel greave hummed against her skin, the more the Maidens came forward, knowing her intentions well and scrambling over each other to be present, to exist enough to witness. Pyrrha let them. She was so very tired.

The entrance to the tower was guarded by Atlesian soldiers to prevent anyone from working there unsanctioned. She could fly of course, but flying came with fire and she would've stood out like a fireball in the night. By the time she reached the base of the tower on the opposite side of the guarded entrance, a thousand years of collective knowledge provided Pyrrha an answer. Without breaking her stride, she lifted a foot and placed it flat against the steel of the building. The metal rod in her heel and the copper enforced frame of her shoe magnetized to it immediately. When she lifted her other foot to stand against the tower, fully parallel to the ground, all the metal on her body — from her circlet to the buckles on her pouches — pushed _down_ against the tower, actively and effectively counteracting gravity.

With a sensation akin to climbing a sand dune, Pyrrha walked up the side of Beacon Tower. She wasn't sure she was ready for the sight that awaited her at the top, but her heart couldn't bear another day of what awaited her on the ground.

So Pyrrha climbed all the way up the tower, and then over the top with relatively little trouble. Her organs needed a moment to readjust to being under the rules of gravity once more, and her bronze-encased calf throbbed an annoyance, but her eyes had no trouble adjusting to the wreckage of Ozpin's office. Glass was scattered everywhere, between the obliterated windows and the remains of Cinder's weaponry. There was a horrid bloodstain near the center of the room. Pyrrha fought through the traumatic memories and forced herself to stand as close to it as she could manage to be in the middle of the room.

Her steel greave vibrated against her leg. She glowed softly, an ember against the ash of the night sky. She could feel every single Maiden in her mind, fighting for space, like they had the last time she'd been here. Pyrrha reached out with her Semblance and felt the individual scraps of metal around her, felt where they were bent and taught and severed. Not only in the architecture, but in the copper pipes, the aluminum wiring, the clocktower gears and concrete nestled rebar. It all sung to her, like the Maidens sung to her, begging _home home home._ And it was a yearning Pyrrha knew all too well.

She shut her eyes and let the music swell.

Like a string quartet under conduction, the metal reacted to her aura. It moved under her guidance, all at once. Pieces floated to their partners. Warped and mangled shapes superheated and regained their prior form, soldering to their other halves with barely a push of force. Metal wires weaved back together with the gentleness of a mother braiding hair. She built the framework around herself, the bones of an iron cage. Then Pyrrha _reached_ and felt the buckled steel foundations of the building that had all the construction workers worried. She strained for them. Those particular pillars of steel stretched all the way down into the subbasement where Cinder and Ozpin had fought. They held up Beacon Tower like her spine held up her body and she sang to it, urging it to take its former shape. Securing the foundations took about as much effort as lifting the sheer weight of tonnes of metal and concrete on Pyrrha's physical shoulders. But she whispered and gradually coaxed the bruised framework back into form — where it could carry the weight of the world by way of the CCTS.

At the very last, Pyrrha's steel greave deconstructed from her leg and took its former shape as a small clockwork gear, completing the last of the connection. Eyes still closed, Pyrrha felt around, pushing her well of aura against every shaving of her metallic symphony, double-checking that every breath of iron dust was where it should be and no mismatched pieces had escaped her notice. It was solid. The tower would hold.

When Pyrrha opened her eyes, she found herself in Ozpin's office — immaculate as she remembered it — bathed in red light rather than its traditional green. The marble at her feet remained broken, the shattered glass she could do nothing about, but Ozpin's chair was in its place, undented. Above her, the great gears of the tower rested, unmoving sentinels awaiting electricity to come to life. Pyrrha knew for a fact that she had thrown some during her fight with the dragon and realized she must have lifted several elements of the tower from the ground far below.

She also realized that the red glow wasn't from her aura. She was burning — as she had the night Beacon fell. It felt _right_. All the magic in her mortal body, all the heat she had tried to hide away in her bones, was blazing into the night. It stretched out further than she could imagine — past Vale and Forever Fall, to the corners of the continent, to the ice of Atlas and the deserts of Vacuo and Menagerie. Softly, it whispered — _she_ whispered — into the ear of the sky and the mouth of the earth, as easily as she had sang to the metal. The Fall Maiden said to the planet _it is time_ and it obliged her will to make it so.

A wind swept out from Beacon Tower that night, stripping trees of their leaves and warmth from every corner of every continent. It carried on its wings the embers of autumn's judgement, and anything that could not bend would burn, and tomorrow, it would be winter.

Then it was over. The fire went out. It took the voices of the Maidens and the heat from within Pyrrha's very bones.

She stood atop the tower in the middle of the pitch-dark night. Freezing, empty, and alone.

* * *

Author's Note: 118 faves and 175 follows. Shout-out the ~60 of you who don't want to call this a fave yet buuuut you're willing to keep reading and see how it goes. Friendly reminder that all reviewers will receive a response and a preview of next chapter :)

I'm really proud of this one. Frankly, I'm always happiest with the chapters that I can shape more poetically. The Fall Maiden is both beautiful and terrifying, lonely and never alone, caged and free. What a dichotomy. And speaking of poetry as a means to best express loneliness (as we were speaking of a couple chapters ago), here's to you, Ms. Dickinson.

Chapter Title: "You cannot put a fire out; / A thing that can ignite / Can go, itself, without a fan / Upon the slowest night." -You Cannot Put a Fire Out, Emily Dickinson


	9. burning at these mysteries

In her bedroom in the faculty wing of Beacon, Glynda sat perched with one hip on her windowsill. She analyzed the prickling skyline of ruins in the distance, the constructions cranes with upturned buckets facing towards the moon like long-necked Grimm. Behind her, a kettle whistled. With a few over-the-shoulder swipes of her riding crop, water poured from it into a mug with tea and splashed slightly as it drifted into her hand. Glynda took a cautious sip, still observing the smashed building tops and the bony, broken skeleton of Beacon Tower.

Once upon a time, she'd loved this view. When she'd been a student here, Glynda used to sit on the roof of the dorm building after morning training and watch the sun come up over the city. Sometimes her teammates would join her, bringing breakfast when the weather was good, bringing their weapons for extra practice if they weren't tired enough. Sometimes, her partner would grab her by the wrist and drag her back to the room because only lunatics were up so early on the weekend. And sometimes, Glynda missed that.

The headmistress made a steady loop around the room, her leg muscles twitching ever so slightly from the all-night pacing. Glynda took a sip of her tea and banished the memory — along with the acknowledgement that the ache of nostalgia was what had woken her in the first place.

She closed her loop back to the desk she'd been avoiding. At the very least, she needed to make an attempt at work so as not to squander her insomnia before daylight. With a weariness she kept well-hidden after a day of straining her Semblance to rebuild, Glynda lowered herself down to her chair and checked the time on her scroll.

A glow of warm red light flashed once through the window.

Glynda twisted in her seat for a beat, then stood. Where once had been ruins, Beacon Tower jutted out from the horizon as it had prior to the invasion. And while no green light emanated from within, a dimming whisper of scarlet burned somewhere inside Ozpin's former office. Visible for just a second, before it, too, disappeared.

Glynda was out the door as soon as she was dressed.

At the entrance of the rebuilt tower, she demanded to know if anyone had been allowed up. The startled guards shook their heads, stepping aside as Glynda pushed past them to the staircase. Her muscles burned as she climbed the tower all the way to the top, the warmth counteracting the sudden drop in temperature. Upon arriving at Ozpin's office, Glynda cursed. The room was empty. Pyrrha had somehow ascended and descended the tower without anyone noticing. Allowing herself only a moment to catch her breath, Glynda drew her weapon and got to work.

From the top of the tower, she worked her way down level by level — restoring marble floors and concrete supports, glass screens and tiny studs of plastic in the walls. She strained her Semblance until she thought she would faint, and then strained it more. By the time the sun began to rise, Glynda was securing the very last of the collapsed marble pillars on the ground floor that weighed a thousand times more than she did. Once it floated back into place, Glynda collapsed on her hands and knees, her riding crop clattering out of her reach.

"Headmistress?"

Glynda raised her head. General Schnee stood beside her, reaching down a hand to help her up. Gratefully, Glynda took it. She got up onto her knees before pulling herself fully to her feet with Winter's help.

The general cocked her head. "Are you alright, ma'am?"

"Of course," Glynda said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I single-handedly rebuilt all of Beacon Tower in a night, didn't I?"

Winter released the elder huntress's hands. Reaching down to retrieve Glynda's riding crop, she presented it back to the headmistress. "Is that the report?" Winter asked carefully.

Glynda took back her weapon and tucked it into her waistband. She steadied herself against the column she had just rebuilt and met Winter's steel blue eyes with an unflinching stare. "Is there another report, General?"

Under the scrutiny, Winter betrayed no discomfort — Ironwood's glare was all but legendary and Winter had endured far more years of _that_ — but the general was resolute as she relayed, "My men at the front said they were at their posts all night without any disturbances. One minute the night was quiet and warm, the next there was a flash of red light and the tower reformed as if under its own power."

With an unsteady hand, Glynda adjusted her glasses. "How long did it take?"

"According to one, all of a ten seconds."

"Good. I will have to keep my story straight." Glynda nodded, stepping away from the column and taking stock of the lobby of the CTTS tower. "Your soldiers should be immediately debriefed on the precise nature of my Semblance. Then relocated, at your discretion."

Glynda watched Winter subtly struggle around the argument clawing up her throat. Finally, she gave a terse nod. "Of course, headmistress."

Pausing to consider the woman at her side, Glynda searched the young general's face for any signs of mutiny. Winter was as smooth as a sheet of ice. She reminded Glynda so much of James sometimes.

"Thank you, General," Glynda said, allowing a warmth to color her words. "I know what Ironwood and I have asked you to do is not easy."

"But I'll know when I need to know," Winter repeated, raising a brow as if challenging whether that was still the case.

"I will write you the dissertation," Glynda promised with a curt nod.

A good soldier to the last, Winter nodded in turn. "Very well. I'll have my men transferred back to Atlas. What's left to repair of the tower?"

The vault was left, but that was one secret Winter didn't need just yet. Glynda waved off-handedly.

"Tell the contractors and electricians to look over the wiring first thing," the headmistress said, turning to leave. "If we can run a current through it all, the worst of our troubles may be over. I'll send word to Atlas and Mistral and Vacuo that the world can keep spinning at last."

Winter reached out suddenly to catch Glynda as she stumbled. She straightened her out and dropped her arms as soon as she could. Careful to betray none of her concern, Winter asked, "And… what are you going to do?"

Fighting the urge to shiver against the cold, Glynda began shuffling to the elevator and the vault. "I'm going to finish up here," she said, voice hardening. "Then I'm going to have a _day off_."

* * *

Jaune groaned, twisting and turning in his sleeping bag. Nightmares had started trickling into his pleasant dreams again — just as they did every night, just as soon as he was convinced they wouldn't come.

The terror perverted his happy memories of study groups and team training with the sound of screams, the roars of Beowulf in corridors and hallways where no monsters should've been. It clawed into him rib by rib until Jaune startled himself awake with the deafening memory of a rattling metal locker. He stared up at the cafeteria ceiling and took a few deep breaths. With some calming mantras — _you're safe it was just a dream everyone's safe just a dream —_ Jaune felt the fear withdraw to subtle burn in his lungs. He rolled over and reflexively reached for the warmth of Pyrrha in the dark. Only to find no one there.

It took Jaune a long minute of sleepy realization; then he was elbowing Nora and kicking Ren awake. They were all dressed in minutes, leaping over the sleeping forms of their fellow hunters until they reached the guards at the door. Nora strung together some elaborate story to get her team out of the cafeteria before morning chore call. And while the farmer and weaponsmith guarding the cafeteria didn't seem to wholly believe (or understand) her, it wasn't hard to notice that JNPR's thinly veiled panic was real, even if their story was not. They were allowed to leave.

Jaune took the grounds, hoping maybe someone had spotted her. Ren took the school to check their usual haunts. Nora ran all the way to the Atlesian airship to see if Weiss knew anything they didn't.

As Jaune stopped every person he came across and asked the same questions — _have you seen a tall redhead with a limp? Have you seen Pyrrha Nikos? —_ his skin tingled with anxiety and the shockingly chill early morning air. He told himself the next person would know, the next person would have seen her. He half expected to run into her taking a jog like she used to during the school week early in the morning. But as the sky began to clear, the boys regrouped at the shattered remains of the courtyard statue without success.

"Anything?" Ren panted, leaning on the fallen marble shoulder of one of the statue's figures to catch his breath.

"None of the soldiers or workers have seen any teenage huntress walking around in the dark," Jaune answered, absentmindedly rubbing at his elbows. They were the only parts of his arms exposed to the cold.

"She's not in the dorms," Ren reported, his chest heaving. His weeks in recovery had done nothing to improve his already poor stamina. "All the accessible classrooms were empty."

"Did you check the roof where we used to spar?"

Ren shook his head. "You can't reach that part of the school yet."

Jaune threaded his hands behind his neck and stared up at the pink sky. His stomach felt hollow, urgency buzzing through all his bones. In his peripheral, he spotted Nora and Weiss running over.

" _Please_ tell me you found her," Weiss demanded at the same time Jaune blurted, "Was she with you?"

"She wasn't anywhere _._ You didn't find _anything?"_ Nora pleaded, putting a hand on Ren's hunched back. Both Jaune and Ren shook their heads.

Weiss balled her hands into fists. "Well this is _perfect_." She twisted to glare at Jaune with an ice in her voice that made him bristle. "How did this happen? You were supposed to be _watching_ her."

"Milo and Acuou were still in her sleeping bag," Nora relayed, stepping up in Jaune's defense before the guilt could find purchase in his chest. "Someone could have taken her."

"Without waking a hall full of hunters?" Ren made his incredulity clear. "Possibly, but Pyrrha would have put up a fight."

"She left under her own power," Weiss said, flashing the group a message on her scroll too quickly for any of them to really read it. "The guards at the door to the cafeteria said they let out a girl a few hours ago for construction work downtown who matched Pyrrha's height."

"But why?" Nora asked, hugging herself and shivering in her skirt and short sleeves. "Why would she just _leave?"_

The four of them stared at each other, at a loss until Ren lowered himself down to sit on the hip of the overturned figure. "She hasn't been herself lately," he said carefully.

"Well, _duh,_ Ren! Everyone's been staring at her in the halls and talking about her behind her back and saying mean things about Penny! And her…her..." Nora trailed off angrily, stopping herself before she accidentally grabbed Magnhild and punched something else in the face with her hammer.

"They always have," Ren answered. "She's simply...stopped caring."

Jaune furrowed his brow at Ren, not liking his train of thought. "She's adjusting to all of this. She'll be back to herself soon enough."

Ren looked Jaune over. Over and right through him. "We don't know that."

"Whether Pyrrha is behaving normally or not is irrelevant if we can't find her," Weiss interrupted.

Nora glanced between her teammates and cut through the sudden charge in the air. "Jaune? We've checked everywhere except Forever Fall."

Crossing his arms, Jaune stared at the shards of statue at his feet and considered Pyrrha lately. She'd been having trouble with crowds; he'd noticed how she braced herself anytime she walked into a space full of people. If she had disappeared on her team after a month of having them breathing down her neck, she might've gone looking for space. If not to the roof or the dorms or the grounds, where else would she go for privacy?

"Alright, here's the plan," Jaune said decisively. Ren and Nora straightened up. Weiss stepped closer, warily. "Weiss, can you get Ren and Nora on perimeter duty today?"

"Easily," she said, already pulling out her scroll.

"Do it. Uh, please," he added when Weiss shot him a _you're not_ my _team leader_ sort of look. "If she's looking for peace and quiet, she might have gone out to the ruins."

"On her own?"

"Yeah. Pyrrha's always been fine tackling Grimm on her own." _Especially now,_ he didn't say.

Weiss sent a message on her scroll. "Ren and Nora are on perimeter duty as of this minute."

"Great. Can you head to the docks? See if anyone there saw her get on a ship to Vale. I'm gonna…" Jaune swallowed nervously. "I'm gonna go tell Goodwitch."

Nora shot Jaune a panicked look, fearing repercussion, but Weiss shut Jaune down.

"You can't. She's off the grid today. We — the soldiers, I mean — have orders from Winter not to disturb her. She did _that_ last night," Weiss said and gestured to the horizon.

JNPR turned, for the first time noticing Beacon Tower gleaming in the distance under the pale orange of the rising sun. Jaune startled to see it fully reconstructed. The last time he'd seen it like that was the night Beacon fell. Before Pyrrha's kiss. Before Pyrrha's—

A thought occured to him.

"I'm going to try to find Glynda anyway," he lied to the others. "Giver her...an abridged version of events." He gestured to the rubble they were standing around. "We'll meet back here in an hour. Send word if you find her before then."

His teammates nodded — Nora eagerly, Ren more slowly. Weiss didn't, not right away. She made Jaune sweat for a moment under her critical gaze before nodding her confirmation as well. The four of them broke off, each heading in their own direction. Jaune jogged towards the dorms and ducked into a doorway. He counted to ten, checked to make sure the others were far off, then headed out towards the city.

It was surprisingly easy for Jaune to sneak in with the crowd of contractors and electricians already starting their inspections of Beacon Tower. He ducked underneath the receptionists desk and waited for a group of them to start up the stairs to the upper levels. Grateful he didn't have his loud armor to worry about, he quietly jogged to the elevator he knew went all the way down to the vault Pyrrha and Ozpin had taken him to. Using Crocea Mors as a crowbar, Jaune noisily pried open the elevator panels to stare down at the long drop to the bottom.

Voices were heading towards the building's entrance with the next batch of contractors. Jaune considered the elevator cables for a moment, and figured if they could hold an elevator they could definitely hold his measly weight. He secured his weapon back to his belt, and with a running start, Jaune leapt into the metallic expanse, grabbing a cable with enough momentum that his glove almost slipped off his hand. Once recovered from his split-second heart attack, he quickly slid down the cable as he heard workers wondering about the open elevator shaft. He was in near complete darkness by the time one of the men looked, and he was in _total_ darkness when they shut the door.

Jaune poked at his own aura to see better. With the light of his dim glow, he made his way down the shaft, sliding in short increments all the way to the lowermost floor, hoping that his gut feeling was correct. Once he could see the bottom, he sighed and dropped to the ground. Prying the doors open once more and climbing through the opening left him in a large stone cavern of gaping darkness. His only light came from himself.

"Pyrrha?" he whispered into the dark. "Pyrrha, are you in here?"

Cautiously, Jaune made his way across the giant expanse of the vault. It had been repaired, as the rest of the tower had been, but Jaune still found some strewn bits of rubble as he lightly jogged across the room to the other side where he remembered the machine was, calling Pyrrha's name into the dark all the way.

As he neared, Jaune was surprised to find the machine fully rebuilt, precisely as he remembered it. Both glass doors were reformed and all the wires looked properly connected. And while the reflection of his aura's glow created a glare against the glass, he swore he saw something inside one of the two propped-up metal coffins.

Jaune had a moment to process that his feet were not touching the ground before he was thrown, hard, into one of the large chunks of marble still strewn across the floor. Without his armor, the blow _hurt._ If he hadn't had his aura up already, it would have hurt a hell of a lot more.

Jaune staggered to his feet. The invisible hand grabbed him again, this time throwing him in the other direction, against a fully constructed pillar. Jaune braced himself this time, turning in the air to collide with his shoulder instead of his back. The blow didn't stick and Jaune shook off the invisible force with a sharp twist. He was dropped back on his feet in moments, Crocea Mors drawn. Jaune turned his aura way up to heal the initial blow, allowing him more light to see, and opened his mouth to demand his assailant show themselves.

He caught the reflection of his aura on half-rim glasses before the whistle of a riding crop cut through the silence. Then Jaune was launched straight up in the air, his stomach dropping just as he reached the zenith of the arc. His brain struggled not to panic. Training muttered in his ear _landing strategy landing strategy._ As he began to come back down, Jaune tucked his shield and sword close, prepared to roll as he landed to defuse _some_ of the momentum. His aura took a hit from the sheer height of the drop, and as he recovered, his shield arm strained as he rolled over it wrong. Jaune scrambled back up and, without a second to breathe, found Crocea Mors ripped from his grip, sent flying at full speed around a column, and then right back. At his head.

Jaune jumped to dodge out of the way — but was suspended off the ground once more. One short slam into the ground that made his vision spin. Then he was skidding across the floor on his front before being thrown into one of the machine's metal pods. He smashed through the glass lid, shards cutting into his aura all up and down his spine and the back of his legs. Then his shield came at him like a frisbee, jamming him in the stomach and trapping him against a painful bed of glass and metal. Jaune knew what came next. He caught a glimpse of his own sword whizzing at his head and screwed his eyes shut.

No strike came. Crocea Mors stopped an inch from his left eye, poised in perfect stillness with a killing blow.

"Ten minutes," Glynda's voice said from the dark. Her riding crop whizzed through the air again and two green torchlights came on directly over their heads. Jaune could see her fully now, stepping out from behind the pile of marble rubble, holding Crocea Mors aloft under her own power. Her expression was vicious. "That's the amount of time Qrow was separated from Amber when her horse stopped to graze. Ten minutes, after ten generations. That's all it took to put us _all_ in the situation we are in this very moment, Mr. Arc."

Still pinned under his own weapons with bits of glass and metal biting into his skin, Jaune felt shame flush his face, felt something slimy drop into his stomach. "I can explain…"

"You swore to us you would protect her," Glynda said, her voice perfectly civil if you were unaware of the anger seething one tone down. "You and Ms. Rose swore."

"We can," Jaune pleaded. "We _are,_ we just—"

Crocea Mors switched which of Jaune's eyes it was pointing at and Jaune visibly flinched. Glynda went on. "Pyrrha Nikos is the queen in a chess game you can't even begin to comprehend," she said coldly. "I told you. If you could not protect her, I would. And I would do it _my way._ "

Glynda cut a diagonal arc through the air. Jaune's sword and shield clunked to the floor, the pressure on Jaune's chest relieved.

He swallowed hard. "Professor... Please—"

"You had _one_ job, Mr. Arc," she said. Her green eyes burned brighter than the candle light.

Pale, Jaune gingerly stepped out of the dented metal pod, and the sound that came out of him could barely be considered a word. _"...don't."_

Glynda turned from him. Their conversation decidedly concluded, she focused on fixing the last pile of rubble back into a column. Jaune watched her numbly. He wanted to beg her to reconsider, wanted to tell her everything he'd told Qrow in the hospital — but guilt had an iron grip on his throat. He'd failed before, hundreds of things, but nothing with consequences like this. He'd made a promise and he'd broken it. And it was going to cost him Pyrrha.

Pyrrha.

Jaune looked over at the other pod, silver-green in the light of the odd lamps. He took some steps closer and found her sleeping inside, like a princess from a half-remembered fairy tale. Stripped down to her hunting underclothes, she'd folded her leather chest piece for use as a pillow, her circlet removed and secured at her elbow. She was half-curled into a fetal position. The unusual lighting made the tear tracks shine prominently on her face.

Jaune passed a hand softly over the glass box. His other clenched into a fist at his side.

"It won't happen again," he said without taking his eyes off Pyrrha. When Glynda didn't answer, he corrected himself, louder. " _I won't_ let it happen again."

The crunching of reforming marble stilled, and Jaune turned to stare down his headmistress, daring her to contradict him. Glynda met his glare with a patronizing look. Before Jaune could repeat himself, Glynda's riding crop flicked and Jaune was abruptly at the pointy end of Crocea Mors once more.

"The individuals who will come after Pyrrha will not stop like I did, Mr. Arc," Glynda said caustically. The sword twisted in his face for effect. "They will not care that you are a hunter-in-training. They won't care that she's your teammate. They will come for her like they've come after the others and they will kill her."

Jaune held his flinch, steeling himself with the truth of his words. "They'll have to go through me first."

"And they will," Glynda said, almost conversationally. "They would even if you were the greatest hunter in the world, which you are _far_ from." There was a pain in her eyes that Jaune had never seen before. "Alone or surrounded by as many friends as you can stomach to sacrifice — it doesn't matter. They'll clear a path in blood. She isn't safe here. She isn't safe with _you_ , Jaune."

Another swish and Crocea Mors sheathed itself. The shield collapsed and fell with an unceremonious clatter at Jaune's feet. He was shaking. The blurriness in his vision was anger and, he hoped, not real tears. He didn't — or couldn't — offer Glynda a rebuttal. But when she made to step towards Pyrrha, Jaune's feet jerked into motion. He planted himself solidly between his headmaster and Pyrrha. Their eyes locked and the only thing running through Jaune's head, the only coherent thing that wasn't desperate electric plasma, was _don't you touch her._

They sized each other up in silent, dragging seconds. Glynda tore her eyes away first, much to Jaune's surprise. She stared at the second shattered pod for a long moment, then back at Pyrrha. Her gaze slid back to Jaune; her jaw set.

"Very well," she said softly. She brought her feet back to neutral, clasping her hands behind her back, as if they were on opposite sides of an auditorium class and Jaune was answering a pop quiz. "Give me _one_ reason, Mr. Arc."

His hand on the glass coffin wanted to curl into a fist, his nails scratching uncomfortably against the glass. Glynda already knew he was a failure as a huntsman. He couldn't even beat a true huntress in a fight. He had no Semblance, no formal training, no unique skill set.

All he had was an heirloom sword and Pyrrha's faith in him.

Jaune looked back down at Pyrrha, searching for words. But the sight of her uncurled the anger from his chest. It uncurled the tension from his hand and the pressure from his throat.

Wordlessly, Jaune undid the metal clasps of the pod door. Pyrrha's brow furrowed as her barrier from the cold was removed. She curled tighter into herself, began to glow. An ever slight warmth bloomed from her skin in warning as Jaune reached for her.

"Hey… Hey, it's me," he whispered. "It's Jaune."

Jaune slipped his arms under her carefully. He waited for her expression to neutralize before moving her. Slowly, he lifted her into his arms. The heat from her skin began to climb.

"It's alright," he promised. "We're going to the dorms. I've got you."

He kept talking and waited. Gradually, the heat began to dissipate. Pyrrha relaxed in his arms, her face seeking his shoulder, her hand half-curling against Pumpkin Pete's face on his chest. The heat around her dropped and dropped until Pyrrha was as cold as the room around them.

Jaune adjusted her ever so slightly, securing her in his arms. Without so much as a passing glance, he carried her past Glynda, who made no move to stop him. She simply watched him go from under the glow of the torchlights.

* * *

News about the tower spread quickly. By lunchtime, a crowd of hunters and soldiers had gathered around the base, trying to stay out of the way of the personnel that needed access to the building.

"I can't believe Goodwich pulled that off overnight," Velvet commented, her ears tipping back as she stared up the length of the tower with her team.

"I can," Coco said with a chuff. She eyed the structure over the brim of her sunglasses. "That woman is the textbook definition of a workaholic."

"This is wonderful!" one of the NDGO girls said nearby, laughing as she looked on at the electricians and contractors talking particulars over blueprints of the tower. "Oh, I'll be able to call home! My parents must be so worried."

Team BRNZ's leader kept refreshing something on his app. "Were any of the other schools attacked? We should see if any of the other schools were affected."

General Winter Schnee stood among the hunters, unable to corral any of them to their chores as soon as news spread. Even she didn't look like she wanted to bother with her tasks when the buzz about the tower was all but electric.

"I'll finally be able to reach my father in Atlas," Flynt Coal said with a proud smile. "No offense to my old man, but his calligraphy leaves a lot to be desired."

"Atlas, Shmatlas! Menagerie must be in a panic," Neon Catt said loudly to her partner. "Once, in my hometown growing up, the CCTS went fritzy during a weekend sandstorm. Getting mail that far out of the way of regular routes is practically _impossible_!"

Coco adjusted her suitcase more comfortably against her hip. She eyed Fox and Yatsuashi a few paces behind her, assisting some construction workers carrying over testing equipment, and then Velvet's slowly growing smile. Coco's own smile had a hard time staying neutral.

"You know," she said sincerely, "I've got to hand it to Goodwitch. For the first time since everything went gills up… I feel like we've actually got a shot at getting back to normal."

* * *

Author's Note: Up to 128 faves and 194 follows. I feel like a snowball going down a hill collecting more and more of you every chapter :)

For all the moral quandaries in this fic, I greatly enjoy writing the chapters where Jaune acts as the humanity to Pyrrha's divinity, the Icarus to her Prometheus if you will. I like tinkering with that role. The scene with Jaune and Glynda was an unexpected surprise as well. That whole bit was not in my original outline and grew quite organically while writing the scenes around it. I'm still sort of in shock about it.

Going to need to take another hiatus to handle Real Life. I hate doing it, but I'm going to give this story the amount of dedication and attention that it deserves gosh darn it. I've come too far to start with half-ass chapters now. So. Expect me back mid/late April, when I'll (hopefully) have Everything Together.

Reviews are always loved and appreciated, and they will always be responded to with kind words and an excerpt from the upcoming chapter :)

Chapter Title: "When I'm on fire when you're near me / and I'm on fire when you speak / and I'm on fire burning / at these mysteries" -On Fire, Switchfoot


	10. gold dust woman

Pyrrha woke from a half-remembered dream of metal and fire to find herself in a familiar place.

Slowly, she pushed up onto her elbows. All her muscles protested in exhaustion, in resistance to an invisible pressure the size of the sun pushing her down to the forest floor. She looked around. The auburn forest closed in on her on all sides, the trees stripped of leaves for a nonexistent winter, but with trunks too thick to see beyond. Or above, she realized, looking up and seeing that the naked fingers of the branches now weaved together to make a dome — like a giant overturned wicker basket. If there was any light beyond, Pyrrha couldn't see it.

Pyrrha couldn't remember why she was here, only that she was not supposed to be alone. She knew, like she knew many things, that there was no one else around. She heard no voices, felt no other presences but her own. She didn't know her own name, but she knew that was odd.

She rolled over onto her hands and knees, straining against the bone-bending grip of gravity that made her feel like she was trying to lift the very forest on her back. One limb at a time, she managed, staggering to her feet in the swelling silence. She was supposed to be here, she knew, but she wasn't supposed to be by herself. They promised her she'd never be alone.

The thought chased its tail. _They promised her they promised her they promised her they…_

Pyrrha struggled to walk under the weight that demanded she lie down, that she sleep, but her feet kept moving. A shard of panic weaved a scar through her mind, fearing the aloneness more than the forest, more than the addictive pull of sleep wanting her to be wrapped in a blanket of leaves in the grass where she'd awoken. She staggered to the treeline and, though it was impossible to tell for certain from the center of the field, Pyrrha could see now that the trees were, in fact, a forest — one that kept going, beyond the horizon. She leaned against the outermost tree, instinct screaming at her simultaneously to return to sleep and to seek out what she feared she'd lost.

She didn't want to be alone.

The fear propelled her more than anything supernatural could have. Pyrrha started walking, pulling the weight of the forest behind her, draped in its silky promises of sleep. She was unsure of what she was looking for, but sure she'd feel it the moment she found it.

And she started to feel it.

The more she walked, the less she dragged her feet, the less pull the clearing had on her. Soon, she was walking upright. Almost normal. Almost natural, like all of this was and wasn't.

She carved a path through the trees until she began to notice the trees were alive again. And taller. Much taller. She stared up at them and tried to gauge how high they went. They almost seemed to disappear into the…sun.

Pyrrha blinked. There was a sun above her, warm and bright and everything the auburn forest never was. There were birds in trees and the smell of summer in the air. She tested her feet and found she could run, laughing, free from the pull of that other dreadful forest, and soon she even forgot that she had been anywhere but in this bright, warm place, waiting for something else entirely.

Pyrrha reached an oak tree she could only scarcely get her arms around. She appraised it, then reached for her belt, pulling out a small carving knife. The bark scratched her hands as she shaped the wood into the detailed relief of her favorite flower. For now, she was killing time, waiting for...someone. Waiting not to be alone.

"Faith! Faith, hey!"

Pyrrha turned at the sound of her name. Two children came jogging out from the trees, brothers, she remembered. She knew them. Her best friends.

The oldest one frowned at her. "You shouldn't go off by yourself like that."

"C'mon, Marco," the younger one laughed. "She can handle any pesky Grimm."

Pyrrha beamed proudly, twirling her knife back into her belt, beside her line of handcrafted wooden stakes and shuriken. "Bee, remind Mr. McDoubtful just who out of the three of us is going to be the world's greatest Huntress one day."

Bee elbowed his brother suggestively. "It's gonna be her, bro," he whispered.

Marco scowled at them both. "She's not a huntress _yet_."

Pyrrha shrieked and pointed. "Marco! Behind you! A Beowulf!"

Marco spun wildly, looking for the Grimm. When he found nothing more than laughter from Pyrrha and his brother, he snapped, "That wasn't funny!"

"I'm training your reflexes," Pyrrha said smugly. "When we all get into Signal, we want to impress them with our super duper reflexes."

Marco looked at the floor, still flushed red from the panic. " _If_ we get into Signal."

"Of course we'll get into Signal! Look at us," Bee announced wrapping Pyrrha and his brother under each of his arms. "We're going to kick so much butt!"

Pyrrha laughed, bright and unburdened by whatever had been plaguing her before her best friends arrived. "And even if we don't, we'll have all sorts of adventures! We can travel the deserts of Vacuo, and through the mountains of Mistral!"

"We'll go swimming through the oceans and hiking in the snow!" Bee agreed, striking a dramatic pose.

"We'll be amazing!"

"We'll be unstoppable!"

"We'll be deaf," Marco grumbled, each of them screaming in his ear.

Laughing, Bee wandered away to look at the tree Pyrrha had been carving, scratching at the underbark with his nail and whistling appreciatively. Pyrrha looked Marco in the eye.

"Are you _really_ that worried?"

"No," he grumbled, rubbing absentmindedly at one elbow.

Pyrrha put a hand on his arm. "Marco. You're going to get in."

"But,"

"And when you do," Pyrrha interrupted, "They'll make us partners. And put Bee on our team. And we'll be _so great_ we won't even need a fourth!"

Marco scoffed. "You don't know that."

Pyrrha rocked back on her heels, her smile never faltering. "I know I'll always have your back."

He rolled his eyes but couldn't fully hide his smile. Pyrrha thought it made him look sort of nice. In a way that had the girls in the village weighing the pros and cons of risking cooties to talk to him.

Marco looked about to say something, but glanced over Pyrrha's shoulder and froze, paling.

"Nevermore!" he shouted.

Pyrrha smirked. "Nice try."

Bee snickered but pretended to look scared too. "Oh no! Faith! It's coming right behind you!"

With Bee in on it, she decided to play along. Feigning terror, Pyrrha quickly grabbed three of the carved shuriken at her hip and announced proudly, "Don't worry! I'll protect you!"

She turned, smiling—

—to the sight of a Grimm dragon the size of Beacon Tower bearing down on her.

Pyrrha swore fiercely and dove out of the way of a blast of fire, rolling and knocking her armor painfully against her breast as she ducked behind an outcropping of rock. Her armor? No, that wasn't right. She wasn't… She was…

"Lady Adelind!" someone shouted. "Are you alright?"

Pyrrha looked over, squinting in the dark. With only the moon as her source of light, she could just make out a mop of blond hair where a man was cowering behind a boulder some feet to her left.

Pyrrha offered the man a thumbs up. She pulled off her helmet to clear her head and rid herself of the rattling feeling in her skull. She was in Grimm country; she had a mission to focus on.

The dragon roared, a earth-shaking sound that rattled Pyrrha's bones against her armor. It took once more to the pitch night, fading into the pitch night above the treeline and circling the clearing. A dragon that size wouldn't want to risk get grounded by chasing after inconsequential prey. The effort it would take to get back in the sky wouldn't be worth it to a creature as intelligent and ancient as that.

Pyrrha was flattered she'd gotten it's attention.

"Lady Adelind?" her squire called again, sounding nervous. "What should we do?"

Pyrrha looked over and smirked. She dug into her armor, between her breasts for her flask, and took a long pull of cheap whiskey. Her squire almost dropped his sword in surprise when she tossed it over to him. There were few things more enjoyable to her than flustering the man. He almost reminded Pyrrha of… of someone else…

Another roar as the dragon circled ever tighter, waiting for one of them to get out in the open.

"It's liquid courage!" Pyrrha called cheerfully. "Drink up! You're going to need it!"

The blonde choked on his tentative sip. "Don't say that I'm bait _again_."

"I won't have to say it," Pyrrha teased, swiping back the sweaty blonde hair from her own face. "All you have to do is think of the lines of women out your bedroom door when you tell them that you slayed a dragon."

As she talked, Pyrrha drew her own sword and double checked it's Dust cartridges. The last thing she needed was for it to malfunction with 50 tons of muscle trying to get her between its jaws. She snickered as she looked over and saw her squire downing the rest of her flask.

"Get over here so I can tell you the plan," Pyrrha shouted.

Her squire nodded and shakily stood, ready to sprint over. The dragon screeched suddenly, right above them. Pyrrha caught the gleam of its white mask just as it drew breath, but she was already running for her petrified squire. She swore colorfully before shoving her squire into the dirt and throwing herself over him.

The torrent of fire came down. But Pyrrha felt only a tingling warmth, like when your foot falls asleep for too long. The grass caught around her, as did the trees. The stone they were behind smoothed nearly to glass. The taste of ash filled her mouth. But Pyrrha did not burn. Being fireproof was very conducive to dragon slaying.

It's breath expended, the dragon took off again, fanning its own flames with two powerful beats of its wings. Pyrrha pulled her squire's head up from the dirt and gracelessly threw him over her shoulder, running for the cover of the rock outcropping. Throwing him down behind the barrier, Pyrrha shook him, which felt...very unlike her.

"For the love of the motherfucking _king_ ," she hissed, "so help me, Arc, if you get me killed, I am going to kill _you_."

Her squire's hair was singed, and if his shaking was anything to go by, he was very much in shock. Still, he managed a nod, his eyes coming in and out of focus. "Understood, m'lady."

Pyrrha clapped him on the shoulder, shaking off her too real concern. "Now, you see that cliff face?" She pointed. Her squire nodded. "You're going to run for it on my signal." She grinned at him toothily. "I'll be bait just this once."

Her squire sighed in relief. "You're too good to me, Lady Adelind."

Pyrrha mussed his hair affectionately. "Good dragon snacks are hard to come by, Arc."

She laughed at his expression and stood. In one smooth motion, Pyrrha drew her sword, expanding it to three times it's size. She hit the dust trigger that ignited it and the whole thing caught on fire. The dragon would need to be blind not to see her now. Pyrrha heard the screech and, with a song in her heart, bolted into the forest in the opposite direction of her squire.

She wasn't sure how long she ran. She leapt over overturned trees, across streams, around larger stones. She ran with a smile on her face, from what she loved more than anything in the world. Or… Or was it _to..._

Pyrrha slowed to a stop. All at once, she had no idea where she was or how she got there. She turned in a circle. Trees pressed in on her from all sides of a forest she didn't recognize. Not fiery red, nor bathed in summer, nor pines large enough to hide a dragon. It was cold and dead from the winter, and as a fog rolled through, Pyrrha felt that grip of gravity again, pulling her down to sleep.

But, no, that was wrong. She was looking for something she'd been promised. If she could only _remember_. She spun again, once, twice, searching the trees for—

A light. _There_ it was.

Exhaling, Pyrrha adjusted her hood and the basket at her elbow. She gripped her dust-studded staff in her other hand and quickened her pace to the small cabin. It was nearly invisible in the dark damp woods. Without the interior light, Pyrrha would have missed it entirely.

As she approached, she could hear someone singing off-key. Pyrrha tried to hide the giddy smile at the presence of her favorite, and only, visitor. Instead, she rolled her eyes.

"That better not be the song I think it is," she called, unlocking her front door.

"What can I say, Mother Nature?" her houseguest called back. "You don't get better than the classics."

Smirking, Pyrrha pushed open her front door to find Qrow Branwen sitting on her couch. Next to a glass of her homemade wine, his scroll sat open on the table with a music app playing. He returned her smirk with a lopsided grin of his own.

"You are so old," she teased, dropping her keys on the counter by the door. She leaned her staff against the frame and kicked the door shut behind her. "Gram liked this music. If she could drink her weight in cheap liquor, I wouldn't be able to tell you two apart."

She crossed into the kitchen to deposit her basket of groceries as Qrow whistled appreciatively. "Hey, that lady had good tastes. In music _and_ liquor."

Pyrrha's heart panged. Gram had spent many winter months in Pyrrha's cabin, bringing special gifts and fantastical stories of her travels around the kingdoms. It hurt to remember she wouldn't be coming next year. Gram had come a few months ago, feeling sick and with a dark handsome hunter in tow. Pyrrha had been at her deathbed when Gram grabbed her hand and told her to take her staff...and take her secret.

Pyrrha put away her handful of groceries, procuring a small bottle of brandy from her cabinet and taking a long pull. With the smallest flick of Maiden magic, Pyrrha set a kettle on the stove and bypassed the pilot light to set the water boiling. "How was your trip?" she called back into the living room. "Shit on anyone's head?"

Pyrrha pulled off her cloak to hang it by the kitchen door. She could hear Qrow chuckling around his drink of wine.

"Wow, that joke _never_ gets old," he said. "But I did meet up with a flock of blackbirds who accepted me as one of their own and named me their king. A fascinating experience. I'd recommend it to any and all hunters or huntress's who can turn into fowl to certainly try it."

As Qrow talked, Pyrrha kicked off her muddy boots and undid a few buttons of her blouse. She tousled her hair and draped herself against the doorframe to the kitchen.

"Amazing," she murmured. "That's enough small talk, don't you think?"

Qrow turned around at her voice. He hesitated only a breath before throwing back the rest of the wine he'd poured himself.

"Just about," he answered with a predatory look.

Pyrrha smiled back and met him in the middle of the room, Qrow's hands settling on her hips, ghosting up her ribs. His lips met hers sloppily, tasting like wine and smelling like whiskey. The music from his scroll played on as Pyrrha tangled her hands in his hair. With practiced ease, he grabbed her leg, guiding it to his hip. She gasped in his ear as his tongue lapped at her neck. He felt so good. Except…

Except.

Memories smashed against each other in her head like porcelain tidal waves. This was wrong. This was right. She didn't love him. She _did._ He was her guardian. What they were doing was wrong and if his superiors ever found out… He was a friend of her headmaster… He was the love of her life… He was Ruby's uncle… He was…

Pyrrha pulled back sharply. Doing so _hurt._ Like she'd forcibly moved all her bones while all her muscles stayed in place. Her body at war with her body. Her mind at war with her mind.

Qrow looked down at her, confused. "Amber?"

Pyrrha yanked herself out of his arms. This was wrong. He wasn't the one she wanted to touch her. He wasn't… They _promised_ her… She was…

The pull of gravity grew stronger.

"I'm going to lie down," Pyrrha said thickly. The words echoed loudly in her head, but she wasn't completely sure they'd left her mouth. She stumbled in the direction of her bedroom, using every ounce of willpower to put one foot in front of the other. She fell against the door. She fumbled for the handle, feeling woozy—

Something fell from her hand. Pyrrha looked down with a delayed reaction and noticed her scroll on the floor. She reached down for it, trying not to drunkenly fall over.

"Good friggin job, Elphie," Pyrrha muttered to herself, straightening up and attempting to unlock her dorm room door once more. " _It's just some drinks,_ " she repeated to herself with a mocking chirp, imitating her partner's voice. " _You need to get out more, Elphie, all you do is read books._ Gee, I wonder why."

She dropped her scroll again and stomped her foot in annoyance. The corners of her vision were still spinning and she was _sure_ she was scanning her scroll right. With a disgruntled mutter, Pyrrha slid down the door to the floor. This was precisely what she needed tonight.

"Had a fun evening?"

Pyrrha glared up at the classmate who stood over her. "Like _you_ care, Oz."

Ozpin's youthful smile turned down at the edges. His long silver hair was braided into a thick rope down his back and he looked down at her through half-moon reading glasses. "I was trying to make a joke."

"Don't," Pyrrha muttered, tearing her eyes away from the hypnotizing swing of his braid and bringing her knees up to her chest in hopes of quelling her nausea. "We're not friends."

"If you were less prickly with everyone who tried to talk to you...maybe we could be," he said in earnest.

Pyrrha scoffed. Right. So he could make fun of her bright green hair or weird purple eyes. So he could tell her that she had no right championing Faunus rights on campus because she wasn't a Faunus herself. So he could belittle her love of books or be jealous of her Semblance. If he was going to be just like all her classmates and all the students visiting for the Vytal Festival, she didn't need another friend. Pyrrha had _one_ friend, and if tonight was any indication, that was already sometimes more than she could handle.

When he didn't get a response from her, Ozpin sighed. "Do you need help getting into your room?"

"No," she grumbled. "My scroll is working fine. The door is what's screwed up. Go back to hanging out with your Mistrali boyfriend and leave me to die in this hallway."

Ignoring her jab, Ozpin squatted down to Pyrrha's level. He looked so young. Did he always look this _young?_

"Perhaps… I could give it a try?"

She glared a moment longer, in case it wasn't increasingly obvious that she thought he was being a patronizing upperclassmen asshole. But Pyrrha begrudgingly turned over her scroll. She did really want to get into bed and sleep this off.

With Pyrrha's scroll in hand, Ozpin stood and swiped her in. The door buzzed red, not allowing entry. He frowned at the lock.

"Told you," Pyrrha said with a smug look.

"Forgive me if I doubted you in your current state," he apologized. "Where's your team?"

Pyrrha glared down the empty hallway, turning away from Ozpin. "Like I care." She crossed her arms over her legs and dug her nails into her arms. "Glyn caught a look from one of the Atlas boys at the bar and said she'd be right back."

"Classic Glynda," Ozpin said knowingly.

It was. Still. Pyrrha's gut twisted at the implication of Ozpin's words. "She's not a slut."

"I never said she was," he answered simply.

"But you were thinking it," Pyrrha challenged, getting defensive on her partner's behalf. She looked up at Ozpin with a fierce glint in her eyes.

He paused in running some diagnostic with his own scroll on the door lock and glanced down at her. Instead of answering, he handed Pyrrha back her scroll. "Did you try calling her?"

She hadn't. Wholly out of pride. Without betraying as much to Ozpin, Pyrrha punched in Glynda's glowing face on her scroll. It rang in her hands. And from inside the room.

"Are you _kidding_ me," Pyrrha seethed. She pulled herself up, blowing off Ozpin's offer of help, and banged on the door. "Glyn! Glynda!"

"The door's locked for a reason, Elphie!" her partner's voice called back.

Pyrrha only got madder. The alcohol didn't help. "I don't _care_. You friggin left me in a bar full of slobbering drunk tourists! I want to go to _bed._ "

"You _can't,"_ Glynda reiterated more firmly.

"Open up _right now_ or I'm lifting myself in through the window," Pyrrha threatened.

There was some mild swearing and shuffling, until finally the door unlocked. Glynda threw the door open wearing an oversized Atlesian military jacket. The open garment shaped a highway from her throat, between her breasts, and down her stomach to royal purple underwear. In her bed at the far left of the four-person room, a dark-haired boy was sitting up without a stitch of clothing on him beside the pillow he had situated over his lap.

Pyrrha's anger vanished, along with all the oxygen in the air. Her lungs contracted, pinching her heart like an aluminum can.

Glynda glared at her, making her case without saying a word. She glanced over Pyrrha's shoulder momentarily. "What are _you_ looking at, Ozzy?"

Out of the corner of Pyrrha's eye, Ozpin ducked his head away, blushing scarlet. "Nothing," he muttered.

Her voyeur handled, Glynda's glare returned to Pyrrha. Pyrrha, who suddenly couldn't breathe and had no idea why. She knew Glynda was popular with the boys. She'd known that even before they became partners. She'd envied her for it, longed for it all the same. But seeing it firsthand somehow made it _real_ in a way that the rumors weren't.

Without warning, her anger came rushing back. "You ditched me for some _guy?"_

Glynda flinched at Pyrrha's intensity, having enough sense to look marginally sheepish. "I was going to come back."

"Don't _lie_ to me!"

The boy in Glynda's bed awkwardly threw his legs over the side. "Listen, maybe I should go..."

"No, no, everything's alright, Jimmy," Glynda called sweetly over her shoulder. To Pyrrha, she hissed, apologetic, "Look, I'm sorry I left without saying anything, but he's... I _really_ like this one, Elphie. Can't you, I don't know, stay with Ozzy's team tonight or something?"

Pyrrha stared at her. Her hands were fists, shaking at her side. Inside the dorm, the furniture rattled in response. Her vision blurred.

Glynda blinked at her, suddenly sympathetic. "Elphie?"

Pyrrha felt the first of the hot tears when Glynda said her name like that. She whirled on her heels, slamming the door shut with her unpredictable telekinesis. She heard something crash from inside the room, heard Ozpin calling out after her, but Pyrrha only ran. She ran to the bathrooms, locking the door securely behind her.

Pyrrha gripped the sink and stared at her reflection. Tears ran down pale cheeks from violet eyes. Her emerald-green hair was a mess and she _hated it._ She hated Glynda. She hated how she didn't understand what was happening to her, why this was so painful all the sudden when it was neither new nor unexpected. She ducked her head and sobbed, her shoulders shaking as her knees gave out, pulling her down with an unexpected force. All at once, Pyrrha wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and pretend this had all been a dream—

There was a sharp _bang_ on the door to the bathroom. Pyrrha jumped. She stared at the door, not daring to breathe. She got to her feet. Waiting.

"I know you're in there," a woman's voice snarled.

Pyrrha's breath hitched and she stumbled away from the door, knocking over makeup from her vanity. Her attention unfocused. Her...vanity?

She glanced back at the mirror. But it was circular now, with an ornate silver trim, and set on the worn wooden walls of her bathroom in the attic. The face that stared back at Pyrrha had black hair beyond her shoulders, golden eyes frozen wide in fear.

The knocking on the door grew more violent. "Open this door right now, Cinder," the voice demanded, "or I am _breaking it down_."

Pyrrha fumbled back, away from the door, frantically searching for an escape before things got worse. And things _always_ got worse.

She jumped as a body slammed against the door, the wood groaning under the the strain. Pyrrha backed away the whole length of the bathroom until she was cowering in the tub, begging, please, please hold. Please don't let her in.

Her pleas went unanswered. The next bang was followed by splintering wood, the frame of the door cracking, and Pyrrha ducked her head down. She curled into a ball, covered her head with her hands.

"Poor little girl," the woman's voice crooned from above her.

A hand grabbed her by the hair and Pyrrha cried out in pain as it yanked her out of the tub, dragged her across the floor.

"Poor _stupid_ girl," the woman hissed. She pulled Pyrrha upright and jerked her head back. "Who is he?"

"No one!" Pyrrha answered frantically. "I don't… I don't know what you're talking ab—"

The woman smashed Pyrrha's face into the mirror. Glass shattered around the crater of her face and Pyrrha crumpled to the floor, driving glass into palms and knees. She felt her stepmother step closer and cowered.

" _Tell me_ , Cinder. Or you won't have any face left for him to kiss."

"He's just a boy," Pyrrha pleaded. She could taste blood in her mouth from where her teeth had split her lip. Her nose felt broken. " _Please,_ he's just a boy..."

"Did you think I was stupid?" her stepmother snapped, vicious.

Pyrrha shook her head desperately, ears ringing.

"Did you think I wouldn't noticed the jewelry hidden under your mattress? Or the mysterious flowers in the garden?" Pyrrha's stepmother kicked her. "Did you think I wasn't going to notice your empty bed in the night? In _my_ house?"

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha whispered. "Please...I'm sorry…"

Her stepmother squatted down. Pyrrha curled tighter into herself. The woman grabbed Pyrrha by her bangs and forced her head out from behind her arms.

"You are going to break it off. Understood?"

Pyrrha nodded weakly.

"And if I _ever_ find out you took what wasn't allowed to you..." A cruel smile painted her stepmother's face, her nails digging into Pyrrha's scalp. "I will personally make sure no one _ever_ finds you beautiful again."

Her stepmother released her, but not without a final kick. It forced Pyrrha flat onto the floor, atop a bed of broken glass that tore at her clothes and skin.

Pyrrha shakily pulled herself up onto her hands and knees, feeling the biting of glass on her body, the burning of tears in her eyes. For the last few weeks, she'd known love like her father's, known the touch of something that wasn't cold and sharp and unfeeling, known something that was wholly hers and it wasn't fair. It wasn't _fair._

"Oh," her stepmother added, turning to go, "and clean up all this glass."

Pyrrha felt a fury then, the likes of which she'd never known _._ She looked up at her stepmother's retreating figure, opening the bathroom door to leave back to a life of luxury and ease that Pyrrha would never be allowed, and something in Pyrrha _snapped_.

She screamed — a wordless sound she'd heard herself howl in a tower in another life — and agony completed the circuit. Her latent aura flared. Shards of glass rose around her and, as a collective, flew at her stepmother's turned back.

Pyrrha watched, unmoving, as a hundred daggers ran the woman through. She watched as her stepmother crumpled to the floor, as she struggled to breathe, until she stopped trying. Pyrrha stared until the blood began to trickle towards her over the slanted attic floor. Gravity pulled it like a network of lazy rivers away from her stepmother's still form. Gravity pulled, it _pulled..._

She startled at a sound from downstairs. The obnoxious chatter of her step-sisters coming home.

Pyrrha got to her feet and reached a hand over the glass, fearing for a moment that it would not move as she moved. But it obeyed her will, melding together in the form of a knife in her hands. She saw her reflection in the blade: bloody and bruised and all cut up and, no, she'd never been hurt like this, she'd never _hurt_ anyone, she...

Pyrrha lowered the knife and set her shoulders, stepping over her stepmother's body to push open the door on the other side—

—where a roaring crowd of faunus awaited her.

Pyrrha tried to jerk back. She struggled against the forward motion of her feet, against the sudden cacophony of voices shouting, weeping, calling for blood. The sounds echoed around the courtyard, ringing in her feline ears. She didn't want to be here. Not here. Not _here._..

A servant rushed up beside her, ducking under the flicking of Pyrrha's agitated tail. The avian faunus carried Pyrrha's weapons in one hand. With the other, he wiped Pyrrha's brow in the unforgiving heat of Menagerie's summer.

"Queen Alexandria, they are ready for you."

Pyrrha nodded her thanks, as she knew she should, but still, she resisted. But her feet kept walking, her mind buzzing in silent horror. Her heart was screaming at her bones, begging to keep looking for options, begging to do _anything else_ but _this._

Guards emerged from the palace in full armor, flanking Pyrrha on all sides. They cleared a path around her through the courtyard, dividing the agitated crowd who silenced as she passed them. Some reached out to touch her, some pleaded to her for justice. She slowed the movements of her tail, forced her breath to steady, put power into every stride. The picture of royalty. Though she wanted nothing more than to run, she had to be their queen. They needed her.

What she wanted was irrelevant.

Like a field of wheat, the crowd split open for her. They split until she could see the eye of the storm, where a man was strung up to a whipping post. Beaten and bloody, it would be almost impossible from a distance to tell that he wasn't a faunus. But Pyrrha knew, and the people did too. The individuals surrounding him paused with their whips and clubs raised at the sight of Pyrrha. She sent them stepping back, bowing, with nothing more than a practiced flick of her tail.

The human looked up at her through black eyes, and all Pyrrha's courage coiled at her feet.

He struggled through swollen lips to make out her name and a smile. "Alex," he mumbled. "Alex, thank god."

Pyrrha was thrashing inside her own head, pulling on the reigns of a wild stallion that was her disobedient body. She wanted to run. She'd take the auburn forest, she'd sleep forever like it wanted, if she didn't have to hurt this man.

"Why, Tony?" Pyrrha whispered, where only he could hear. "Why'd you do it?"

The faunus child's parents were weeping in each other's arms at the edge of the crowd. Their oldest child had their fangs and claws bared, ready to tear into the human who had been allowed in their country, who _Pyrrha_ had allowed in her country and her bed.

"You know me," he begged. "Alex, I love you, I would never..."

Pyrrha grabbed him by the throat, dragging him up against the post to her eye level and pinning him there. She bared her teeth, porcelain and gleaming bright enough for all to see.

" _Why?!"_ she demanded, for the fury of the crowd, for the betrayal in her heart.

Tony's eyes grew wild, like a caged animal. With his arms bound, he had no chance of escaping her suffocating grip. "Please...Alex, please…" His eyes screwed shut, body shaking. "It was just a faunus," he whispered.

Pyrrha's grip slackened, just enough to let him breathe. She wanted to shake too, to collapse and weep, but instead she extended her free hand behind her. The servant who had followed her stepped forward and hastily fastened Pyrrha's clawed gauntlet to her hand. At the sight the crowd began to rise in pitch, roars and howls mixing in with the cries for justice and blood and Pyrrha wanted to scream so badly, she feared it would tear her apart.

Duty drowned the sound inside her.

She clenched her hand around Tony's throat, strangling the start of her name from his lips. With a barely controlled trembling hand, Pyrrha raised the gauntlet, ready for a strike. The sunlight caught on the steel claws, embedded with red dust and the legacy of Menagerie.

Over the roar of the crowds, no one heard Pyrrha whisper, "I'm so sorry."

The sound of the crowd grew to a fever pitch, the roar rising and rising. Pyrrha screwed her eyes shut, begging to be anywhere else, to be _anyone_ else. The weight of a thousand lives came down in an avalanche. Gravity _pulled._ And for a moment, she swore she could hear a voice in the crowd, shouting—

"Pyrrha! _Pyrrha!"_

The invisible pressure vanished, as did the deafening roar. Pyrrha gasped, her eyes opening. She was standing, facing the far wall of the dorm room in the dark. She had Jaune pinned by the throat under the choking grip of her fist. Jaune had both hands on her wrist, fighting to yank her off, to _breathe_. Pyrrha's other hand remained aloft, lifting the metal bed frames, pens, their desk chairs, the paperclips from the class binders. All morphed into pointy things and aiming right at Jaune's face.

Pyrrha threw herself back in horror. Everything came down in clanging, clattering mess of metallic objects. Jaune slid to the floor, coughing and gasping for air.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha whispered. She scampered back on her hands and rear, as far away as she could, until she ran into the corner of the room where Nora's dresser used to be, now tipped to it's side several feet away. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"It's alright," Jaune promised between coughs. He struggled to stand and, when that seemed to be too much, got on his hands and knees and crawled over to her. "Hey, it's—"

"Stay away from me!" Pyrrha screamed, covering her face in her arms. She'd started sobbing, started to feel the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt violated. She felt horrified. She almost hurt Jaune.

She _had_ hurt that man. She'd hurt her stepmother, she…

Jaune didn't listen to her. He gently moved her hands down from her face and pulled her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him with enough power to break his bones and buried her face in his neck, crying.

"I'm sorry," he was whispering in turn. "I didn't mean to scare you. You were having bad dreams, I didn't want you hurting…"

In Jaune's arms, the world slowly started making sense again. She hadn't hurt any of those people. She wasn't a queen or a knight or a little girl. She was… She was...

Oh god.

"What's my name?" she asked desperately. "Jaune, _what's my name?"_

"Pyrrha Nikos," he murmured, rubbing her back. "You're Pyrrha Nikos, and everything is alright."

There was a knock on the door. The door handle jiggled frantically.

"Jaune?" Nora's voice called. "Is everything okay?"

"Don't let them see me," Pyrrha pleaded, burying herself further in Jaune's embrace, the only thing that felt concrete and real. Her vision was still spinning. She could still hear the roar of the crowd, of the dragon, of her own voice in her ears, as clear as a bell.

"Everything's fine," Jaune called back, sounding hoarse. He moved to petting Pyrrha's hair and shouted away from her ear. "It's all good, Nor."

"Do I… Should I get Goodwich?" she asked hesitantly.

Pyrrha was suddenly bowled over with that heart-pinching despair at the mention of Glynda, the longing that felt so familiar buried in Jaune's arms. Pyrrha shook her head frantically, struggling to bury the feeling that wasn't hers, the life that wasn't her own.

"It's alright," Jaune said softly, to both of them. Pyrrha could feel his lips in her hair. "I think I've got this."

Nora's footsteps departed from the door and Pyrrha released her death grip on Jaune, if only because her arms had started to hurt from the constant tension. Jaune sat back and pulled her into his lap, resting her against his chest.

They stayed like that until Pyrrha's tears slowed to sniffles. She was exhausted. The pull of sleep felt so promising, and yet it was the last thing she wanted to do. She never wanted to sleep again.

Jaune was still running his fingers through her hair, still murmuring assurances. Pyrrha turned to look up at him and came face to face with the violent purple bruise ringing his throat.

She pushed away suddenly and stood, ashamed.

Behind her, she heard Jaune carefully getting to his feet. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

Pyrrha shook her head and hugged her arms, surveying the wreckage of the room. Their books and papers for class were scattered all over. Half the furniture was on its side, moved by whatever metal was inside it. Ren and Nora's beds were completely overturned. Even the metal hangers in their closet had spilled out, throwing everyone's school attire and formal wear into the chaos.

Jaune swallowed hard enough for her to hear. "Is there anything I can do?"

Pyrrha had been staring at her prom dress, twisted underneath Nora's overturned night table, but glanced over at his words. There was something in his voice she'd never heard before. He was a step away, one hand partially reaching for her, his eyes on her...on her lips.

Her heart raced. She stared, unsure of what he was doing, not wanting to hope as she had done so many times before. But no words came out of her mouth, so Jaune stepped closer, his hand reaching around the base of her neck, holding her steady, his eyes asking if this was alright.

It was. It _was,_ she wanted to say, but her tongue had stopped working. Pyrrha could only stare at him, at the rapidly closing distance like she was watching a car crashing. She wanted this, she'd wanted this for so long, except…

Except.

Pyrrha jerked back from his touch, from his breath ghosting her lips.

"I can't," she said.

Jaune stared at her. "Why?"

Pyrrha couldn't find the words at first, the thoughts fighting for purchase on her lips. But by some bizarre logic, the words that came out of her mouth felt like a truth as irrevocable as the tide.

"If I kiss you, the sun won't come up tomorrow."

There was a sound from outside her window then — a scream or a scraping of metal.

"What was that?" she asked.

Jaune raised a brow. "What was what?"

Pyrrha turned to look. Jaune didn't, staying firmly in place. She walked to the window, slowly, because suddenly walking was hard again. With her hand, she wiped away the thin layer of metal filaments that clung to the glass like lint. Then she had to cover her mouth in horror.

Beacon was burning. The buildings were all alight with fire, in the school and in the distance, the horizon was a smear of lava, Vale in ashes. Grimm roamed the courtyard below her through the flames. Beacon Tower was little more than a giant matchstick, around which the Grimm dragon coiled and perched, screaming its victory into the night.

Pyrrha began to back away from the window. "Jaune… Jaune, we have to go out there. We have to do something..."

"No."

She jumped as she pushed back against Jaune's chest. His arms encircled her, holding her close against him, sending a jolt of electricity straight through her whole body.

"Jaune," she pleaded, eyes still fixed on the scene through the window.

"Stay here," he whispered, low and warm and right in her ear. "Stay here with me."

His lips brushed against the line of her jaw, and Pyrrha's knees went weak despite herself. One of his hands brushed idly over her stomach which did not at all help the warmth blossoming below his fingertips.

"We need to do something," Pyrrha fought to say, fighting the pull of temptation, the pull of force that kept trying to drown her in the siren-song of Jaune's voice.

He kissed behind her ear and her eyes fluttered closed. "You need to go to sleep, Pyrrha."

Jaune kissed again, lower down her neck, and sleep sounded so nice. Sleep in Jaune's arms sounded intoxicating and like the most logical thing in the world.

Something in Pyrrha still fought it. She _wanted_ this, but she needed… Beacon needed saving. The _world_ needed saving. She promised them she would. _They_ promised _her_ …

Pyrrha pulled away like punching under water, and turned in Jaune's arms to face him. Only to find herself standing alone in ruins. The room was abruptly devoid of life, aged a thousand years in a second. The red glow from outside was replaced by cool blue and gray. The roof was caved in and water dripped down to wild grass that grew where carpet should have been. It all shifted and blew in a draft that smelled like burning hair and ash. Where the door should have been, instead was a headstone.

 _Here Lies Pyrrha Nikos. Four Time Mistral Regional Tournament Champion. Sanctum Valedictorian. Vytal Festival Victor._

Pyrrha dropped to her knees to read the rest of the text, in tiny font that covered the entire headstone. A list of her awards and medals and competition wins. From top to bottom. No mention of anything else.

Shaking, Pyrrha bent forward and buried her face in the grass. The weight of gravity pushed down on her shoulders and back, so close to smothering her.

"I want to wake up," Pyrrha pleaded into the dirt. Then louder, "I want to wake up. _I want to wake up!"_

Pyrrha hadn't expected an answer. But a woman's voice calmly said, "You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."

Pyrrha's head snapped up. She was somewhere else entirely. Instead of a gravesite in the ruins of Beacon, she was a thousand miles away, across the ocean, in her—

She was _home_.

Her house in Mistral rose up before her like part of the mountainside it was attached to. It's olive shutters and cream-colored columns looked just like she remembered them, when she'd helped paint them as a child. The ground she kneeled on smelled like jasmine and the wind carried with it the scent of a sky pregnant with storm.

"I'm out in the patio, Pyrrha," the voice called with a barely concealed weariness. "Let's talk."

Pyrrha rose and followed. She _knew_ that voice.

The patio gate was exactly how Pyrrha remembered it too, the same lift and push trick she had to learn as a little girl to keep it from sticking. In the center of the patio, a small table was set up with pastries and tarts, all the snacks Pyrrha used to love as a child, before training forbid her from eating even one. There was a chair on each side of the table. One was empty, and in the other sat Pyrrha's mother.

"Have a seat," the woman suggested, indicating the empty chair.

Pyrrha stood motionless. "This isn't real."

Mrs. Nikos nodded, like Pyrrha had answered a question correct in class. "Very good."

Pyrrha shifted foot to foot, looking over the woman in front of her. Every freckle, every strand of hair matched Pyrrha's memory. The very dress the woman wore was one that she'd seen her mother wear in a dozen photos. "You're not real either," she tried.

"Yes...and no," Mrs. Nikos said cryptically. She picked up one of Pyrrha's favorite pastries and took a careful bite, mimicking mannerisms Pyrrha was all but sure she'd forgotten her mother had. "I am not your mother."

"Then why do you look like her?" Pyrrha demanded, anger bubbling to life now that no terror threatened to drown it out.

Without losing focus on the pastry she was finishing, Mrs. Nikos answered calmly. "Because, dear, I've been transferred from body to body so many times, I've long forgotten my own name or what I looked like. Your memory of your mother is easier to hold onto."

Pyrrha stared at this unfamiliar Maiden wearing her mother's face, her mother's voice, her mother's mannerisms. Mrs. Nikos looked up at Pyrrha.

"Unless you'd prefer me as Jaune," she sighed. "But I imagine we're both about through playing the games of your subconscious, yes?"

Mrs. Nikos indicated the empty chair. After a beat, Pyrrha warily crossed over to it and sat down. She politely declined the pastry her not-mother offered. Pyrrha waited, both women looking out over the border wall at the spectacular view of the city below, the forest beyond.

"As a brilliant girl like you has probably deduced," Mrs. Nikos said, "I am the Fall Maiden."

"The _first_ Fall Maiden," Pyrrha clarified.

Mrs. Nikos smiled at the horizon, wholly at ease. "There is only _one_ Fall Maiden, Pyrrha."

"I don't understand."

The woman crossed her legs, just like Pyrrha's mother would have. "Cinder Fall was not the first of her kind. Over generations, others have attempted to steal the Fall Maiden's powers for their own needs. But the magic within the Four Maidens is essential to the very fabric of all life on Remnant. It comes with a failsafe.

"See, one greedy woman can kill a Maiden and obtain her power. But you and I, Cinder and Amber, the rest of your council, and hundreds of others — we _are_ that power." Mrs. Nikos made the motion of a downward slope with her hand. "The Fall Maiden is a pyroclastic avalanche, roaring down a mountain. The magic sweeps up aura, experience, the wisdom of civilizations. With every host, it grows more titanic, but it is still _one_ force of nature."

Mrs. Nikos smiled over at Pyrrha. "There is only one Fall Maiden. She keeps the world turning beyond the whims of any mortal woman. But she needs to _rest._ To replenish the aura spent weaving miracles." Mrs. Nikos gave her a knowing look. "She shouldn't be up and about, wandering through the memories of her other lives."

Pyrrha folded her hands in her lap, crossed her legs at the ankle. "I...I didn't know."

"You could not have escaped this any more than you could have escaped a wildfire, Pyrrha. Though I admire your strength to try," Mrs. Nikos said proudly.

"My...my council," Pyrrha hedged. "I thought I was… They're all still here? No one's...gone?"

Mrs. Nikos turned to indicate Pyrrha's house behind her. Pyrrha turned too, and found she could see through the walls of her childhood home, into the infinite bedrooms where the remnants of each Fall Maiden slept restfully. All except the two on the patio.

Pyrrha felt the magic pull her towards the house with all the warmth of a lover's hand in hers, and yet...

"I can't," Pyrrha found herself saying.

Mrs. Nikos tipped her head. "Why not?"

In response, the sunset in the distance set the very forest aflame, replacing the cool scent of storm with the smell of smoke and charcoal.

Despite the sudden change, Mrs. Nikos remained kind. "You feel you are beholden to your friends and war you agreed to fight."

Pyrrha folded in on herself.

"You're right," she said, surprising Pyrrha. "The world is in need of the Fall Maiden. Dark forces are at work, trying to upset the balance." Mrs. Nikos looked particularly stern then. "It is folly to grow comfortable in wisdom and assume nothing will change because nothing ever has."

The woman stood and the horizon cleared of smoke and fire, leaving the setting sun a sliver on the horizon.

"But everything it's time, and now it is time to rest," Mrs. Nikos announced, smoothing out her dress. Pyrrha stood as well and Mrs. Nikos adjusted a bang of hair that had slipped out from behind Pyrrha's ear. "I'll walk with you."

Pyrrha followed her "mother" inside the house — past a kitchen with tournament programs magnetized to the refrigerator and a stairwell lined with photos of herself on the podium at numerous competitions — until they turned at the top of the stairs at the door of Pyrrha's room. Mrs. Nikos waited for Pyrrha to take the first step, pushing open the door and stepping tentatively inside.

Gold and silver medals draped from the wooden banisters of her bed. Trophies glinted in the fading sunset light on three separate shelves made specifically to accommodate for their height. Plaques and certificates served as wallpaper.

Pyrrha eyed the bed, then the woman behind her who didn't seem as if she would enter. "What about you?"

"Don't mind me," Mrs. Nikos said with a wave. "I'll make sure you're not disturbed. Just because the Fall Maiden sleeps does not mean that the world stops turning."

Pyrrha took stock of the room again, sharper than her memory of it could have ever been, and stared at the empty twin bed a moment longer. She feared the others' nightmares and memories might try to sweep her off into the depth of madness again.

"Could you stay with me?" Pyrrha asked softly, turning back to the image of her mother. "I'm sorry, I know you…"

Mrs. Nikos shushed her kindly. "Of course. You have nothing to apologize for." She took Pyrrha's hands in hers, the women's silken skin exactly how Pyrrha remembered it. "The seasons change, dear. People don't."

Pyrrha got into bed and Mrs. Nikos tucked her in. As the sun finally set, the swell of magic rose up around her like a slowly filling bathtub, pulling her into sleep, into rest as habitual as the turn of the broken moon around the planet.

"Don't...don't let me sleep too long," Pyrrha pushed through to say.

Mrs. Nikos smiled. "I won't."

Pyrrha felt the woman lean forward and plant a kiss on her forehead, as Alexandria had done all those lifetimes ago.

"Don't worry," Pyrrha heard her whisper as she finally went under. "You can sleep for centuries."

* * *

Author's Note: Well I'm never doing that again. I'm immensely proud, but I feel like I lost three years of my life and fifty percent of my sanity writing this chapter.

However, this monstrosity of an interlude serves a few purposes. 1) This was a writing experiment to see if I could pull off a fully dream chapter without too much confusion. 2) I wanted to portray Pyrrha's fears and insecurities in an original way, i.e. by having them mirrored in the lives of the Maidens in her 'council'. And 3) I needed to pass some important real and in-story time between chapters 9 and 11 because of what comes next. And hoo boy, what comes next.

142 Faves and 210 Follows! Welcome to all who found this fic during the hiatus. Expect the next chapter in about a month's time. Real Life hasn't completely calmed its tits for me just yet, but I am doing my best. Reviews are eternally appreciated and will always be replied to with an excerpt from the upcoming chapter ;)

 **EDITED AUTHOR'S NOTE 7/11:** Real Life has gotten complicated as it often does, so for your sake and mine, I'm officially putting PD on a summer hiatus. I'll still be writing lighter fics over the summer months, but this story takes a lot out of me emotionally to write and the heavier stuff is going to need to wait until some things settle for me IRL. I'll still be answering reviews and PMs, so no worries about me dipping out completely. See you all in the fall ;)

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Author's Notes on the individual segments:

 _Faith_ : Marco and B are modeled on Mako and Bolin from Legend of Korra respectively; Faith's carpentry and wooden weapons are a nod to her other influence, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 _Georgina_ : Adelind means "reptile" or "reptilian". Her squire is an ancestor of Jaune's, and yes, I wholly buy into the fandom theory that Jaune's line of "heroes" were all just plucky young men like Jaune who fought tooth-and-nail to make themselves into legends.

 _Amber_ : Until contradicted by canon, Amber was legal at the time of her death — and dealing with her grief at the loss of her only maternal figure in the arms of a handsome stranger.

 _Elphaba_ : Takes a lot of threads from the book and musical Wicked. In my mind, young Ozpin strongly resembles human Cedric from W.I.T.C.H. And if you try to tell me that the Vytal Festival isn't like the Olympic Village where the most attractive people in the world at the peak of physical condition hook-up in between grueling competition then you have never met a teenager.

 _Cinder_ : Some nods to the Grimm version of the fairy tale and other dark re-imaginings I used to love reading as a kid.

 _Alexandria_ : Tony is modeled on Marc Antony of Rome to mirror Alexandria's Cleopatra influences. Clawed gauntlets are a real terrifying thing that exist.

 _Pyrrha's Subconscious and Mrs. Nikos_ : Both these segments show my adoration for the writing and storytelling on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fans of the show should be able to spot my references to "Hush" in Jaune and Pyrrha's interaction and references to "Restless" in the rest of it, particularly with the first Fall Maiden. Pyrrha and Mrs. Nikos' dynamic also takes a lot of cues from Jean Grey's relationship with the Phoenix Force in the X-Men comics (*loud coughing* particularly their first interaction in the retconning for X-Men #101 I'm a giant nerd *more loud coughing*).

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Chapter Title: "Rock on, gold dust woman / Take your silver spoon / And dig your grave" -Gold Dust Woman, Fleetwood Mac


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